Services or capabilities described in Amazon Web Services documentation might vary by Region. To see the differences applicable to the China Regions, see Getting Started with Amazon Web Services in China (PDF).

Making API requests

Query requests for the Amazon Resource Groups are HTTP or HTTPS requests that use an HTTP verb such as GET or POST.

Resource Groups endpoints

An endpoint is a URL that serves as an entry point for a web service. You can select an appropriate Amazon Web Services Region endpoint when you make your requests to reduce latency. For information about the endpoints used by Resource Groups, see Amazon Resource Groups in the Amazon Web Services General Reference.

Query parameters

Each query request must include some common parameters to handle authentication and selection of an action. For more information, see Common Parameters.

Some API operations take lists of parameters. These lists are specified using the following notation:

param.member.n

Values of n are integers starting from 1. All lists of parameters must follow this notation, including lists that contain only one parameter. A query parameter list looks like the following example.

&attribute.member.1=this
&attribute.member.2=that

Request identifiers

In every response from an Amazon Query API, there is a ResponseMetadata element, which contains a RequestId element. This string is a unique identifier that Amazon assigns to provide tracking information. Although RequestId is included as part of every response, it isn't listed on the individual API documentation pages to improve readability and to reduce redundancy.

Query API authentication

You can send query requests over either HTTP or HTTPS. Regardless of which protocol you use, you must include a signature in every query request. For more information about creating and including a signature, see Signing Amazon API Requests in the Amazon Web Services General Reference.

Available libraries

Amazon provides libraries, sample code, tutorials, and other resources for software developers who prefer to build applications using language-specific APIs instead of the command-line tools and Query API. These libraries provide basic functions (not included in the APIs), such as request authentication, request retries, and error handling so that it's easier to get started. Resource Groups libraries and resources are available for the following languages and platforms:

For more information about libraries and sample code in all languages, see Sample Code & Libraries.

Making API requests using the POST method

If you don't use one of the Amazon SDKs, you can make Resource Groups requests over HTTP using the POST request method. The POST method requires that you specify the operation in the header of the request and provide the data for the operation in JSON format in the body of the request.

The following is an example header for an HTTP request to create a resource group that includes all resources that are tagged Stage=Test. In this example, the Authorization line is word-wrapped here for easier reading. Don't word wrap it in your actual request.

POST / HTTP/1.1
Host: resource-groups.us-east-1.amazonaws.com.cn
X-Amz-Date: 20180112T092034Z
Accept-Encoding: identity
Authorization: AWS4-HMAC-SHA256 Credential=REDACTED/20220113/us-west-2/resource-groups/aws4_request, 
        SignedHeaders=content-encoding;content-length;content-type;host;x-amz-date;x-amz-target, 
        Signature=EXAMPLE5cb91f88f1EXAMPLEa02d3af93dEXAMPLE91e5d03588EXAMPLE88ff1d
Content-Type: application/json
Accept: application/json
Content-Length: 283

{
    "Description": "Resources created for the testing stage.", 
    "Name": "QueryGroup", 
    "ResourceQuery": {
        "Query": "{\"ResourceTypeFilters\":[\"AWS::AllSupported\"],\"TagFilters\":[{\"Key\":\"Stage\",\"Values\":[\"Test\"]}]}",
         "Type": "TAG_FILTERS_1_0"
    }, 
    "Tags": {"Department": "Finance"}
}