Table of Contents:
- Authentication.md for methods related to user authentication, password recovery, etc.
- Banking.md for bank accounts & ACH transfers methods
- Order.md for order-related functions (placing, cancelling, listing previous orders, etc.)
- Options.md for options related endpoints
- Quote.md for stock quotes
- Fundamentals.md for basic, fundamental data
- Instrument.md for internal reference to financial instruments
- Watchlist.md for watchlists management
- Account.md talks about gathering and modifying user and account information
- Settings.md covers notifications and other settings
- Markets.md describes the API for getting basic info about specific exchanges themselves
- Referrals.md is all about account referrals
- Statistics.md exposes the new social/statistical endpoints
- Tags.md exposes the new categorizing endpoints
Things I have yet to organize are in Unsorted.md
Robinhood is a commission-free, online securities brokerage. As you would expect, being an online service means everything is handled through a request that is made to a specific URL.
The HTTPS protocol is used to access the Robinhood API. Transactions require security because most calls transmit actual account informaion. SSL Pinning is used in the official Android and iOS apps to prevent MITM attacks; you would be wise to do the same at the very least.
Calls to API endpoints make use of two different levels of authentication:
- None: No authentication. Anyone can query the method.
- Token: Requires an authorization token generated with a call to log in.
Calls which require no authentication are generally informational (quote gathering, securities lookup, etc.).
Authorized calls require an Authorization HTTP Header with the authentication type set as Token (Example: Authorization: Token 40charauthozationtokenherexxxxxxxxxxxxxx).
The API reports incorrect data or improper use with HTTP status codes and JSON objects returned as body content. Some that I've run into include:
| HTTP Status | Key | Value | What I Did Wrong |
|---|---|---|---|
| 400 | non_field_errors |
["Unable to log in with provided credentials."] |
Attempted to log in with incorrect username/password |
| 400 | password |
["This field may not be blank."] |
Attempted to log in without a password |
| 401 | detail |
["Invalid token."] |
Attempted to use cached token after logging out |
| 400 | password |
["This password is too short. It must contain at least 10 characters.", "This password is too common."] |
Attempted to change my password to password |
...you get the idea. Letting you know exactly what went wrong makes the API almost self-documenting so thanks Robinhood.
Some data is returned from the Robinhood API as paginated data with next and previous cursors already in URL form.
If your call returns paginated data, it will look like this call to https://api.robinhood.com/instruments/:
{
"previous": null,
"results": [{
"splits" : "https://api.robinhood.com/instruments/42e07e3a-ca7a-4abc-8c23-de49cb657c62/splits/",
"margin_initial_ratio" : "1.0000",
"url" : "https://api.robinhood.com/instruments/42e07e3a-ca7a-4abc-8c23-de49cb657c62/",
"quote" : "https://api.robinhood.com/quotes/SBPH/",
"symbol" : "SBPH",
"bloomberg_unique" : "EQ0000000028928752",
"list_date" : null,
"fundamentals" : "https://api.robinhood.com/fundamentals/SBPH/",
"state" : "active",
"tradeable" : true,
"maintenance_ratio" : "1.0000",
"id" : "42e07e3a-ca7a-4abc-8c23-de49cb657c62",
"market" : "https://api.robinhood.com/markets/XNAS/",
"name" : "Spring Bank Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Common Stock"
},
...
],
"next": "https://api.robinhood.com/instruments/?cursor=cD04NjUz"
}
To get the next page of results, just use the next URL.
Some data is returned as a list of results as if they were paginate but the API doesn't supply us with previous or next keys.