---
layout: docs
page_title: 'Commands: operator api'
description: |
  operator api is a utility command for accessing Nomad's HTTP API similar to
  the popular open source program curl.
---

# Command: operator api

The `operator api` command allows easy access to Nomad's HTTP API similar to
the popular [curl] program. Nomad's `operator api` command reads [environment
variables][envvars] to dramatically ease HTTP API access compared to trying to
manually write the same command with the third party `curl` command.

For example for the following environment:

```
NOMAD_TOKEN=d4434353-c797-19e4-a14d-4068241f86a4
NOMAD_CACERT=$HOME/.nomad/ca.pem
NOMAD_CLIENT_CERT=$HOME/.nomad/cli.pem
NOMAD_CLIENT_KEY=$HOME/.nomad/client-key.pem
NOMAD_TLS_SERVER_NAME=client.global.nomad
NOMAD_ADDR=https://remote.client123.internal:4646
```

Accessing Nomad's [`/v1/jobs`][jobs] HTTP endpoint with `nomad operator
api` would require:

```
nomad operator api /v1/jobs
```

Performing the same request using the external `curl` tool would require:

```
curl \
  --cacert "$HOME/.nomad/ca.pem" \
  --cert "$HOME/.nomad/client.pem" \
  --key "$HOME/.nomad/client-key.pem" \
  --connect-to "client.global.nomad:4646:remote.client123.internal:4646" \
  -H "X-Nomad-Token: ${NOMAD_TOKEN}" \
  https://client.global.nomad:4646/v1/jobs
```

## General Options

@include 'general_options.mdx'

## Operator API Options

- `-dryrun`: output a curl command instead of performing the HTTP request
  immediately. Note that you do *not* need the 3rd party `curl` command
  installed to use `operator api`. The `curl` output from `-dryrun` is intended
  for use in scripts or running in locations without a Nomad binary present.

- `-filter`: Specifies an expression used to filter query results.

- `-H`: Adds an additional HTTP header to the request. May be specified more
  than once. These headers take precedence over automatically set ones such as
  X-Nomad-Token.

- `-verbose`: Output extra information to stderr similar to curl's --verbose
  flag.

- `-X`: HTTP method of request. If there is data piped to stdin, then the
  method defaults to POST. Otherwise the method defaults to GET.


[curl]: https://curl.se/
[envvars]: /docs/commands#environment-variables
[jobs]: /api-docs/jobs