Interface with Tapis

Communicating with Tapis: API vs SDK

Tapis is a powerful platform designed to support remote job execution, data transfer, and workflow automation across heterogeneous systems like supercomputers, cloud nodes, and containers.

At its core, the Tapis Jobs API allows users to:

• Submit computational jobs based on registered applications

• Monitor job status through a consistent lifecycle

• Retrieve outputs and logs after completion

• Automate workflows with job metadata, permissions, and archiving

Tapis Jobs are tightly integrated with Tapis Systems (where the job runs) and Tapis Apps (which define how it runs).

There are two main ways to interact with Tapis:

• The Tapis REST API is the raw interface (HTTP-based).

• The Python SDK (tapipy) wraps that API into easy-to-use Python functions.

Approach	Description	Who uses it?
Tapis API (REST API)	The raw interface exposed by Tapis via HTTP requests (URLs, headers, tokens, JSON payloads).	Advanced users, system integrators, non-Python clients
Tapis SDK (Tapipy)	A Python library that wraps the API into easy-to-use Python functions.	Most application developers, researchers, students

Tapis SDK (Tapipy) Recommended here

Tapipy is a Python SDK generated directly from the Tapis OpenAPI specification. It provides:

• Full coverage of the Tapis API

• Complete access to all Tapis endpoints and resources

• Methods that closely mirror the REST API structure

• Fine-grained control for advanced workflows

With Tapipy, you don’t need to manually construct HTTP requests, handle tokens, or parse raw JSON responses — the SDK manages these details for you.

An SDK (Software Development Kit) is a collection of tools, libraries, documentation, and code examples that help developers build software applications that interact with a specific platform, service, or system.

In simple terms: An SDK is a developer toolbox that makes it easier to program against an API or platform.

• Wraps the full REST API into Python methods.

• Allows you to focus on your workflow logic, not protocol details.

• Tapipy is the Official Python SDK for Tapis v3.

  • Auto-generated from the Tapis OpenAPI spec (always current).

• Handles:

  • Authentication

  • Tokens

  • Headers

  • HTTP requests

  • Response parsing into Python objects

Example (using Tapipy SDK):

    from tapipy.tapis import Tapis

    client = Tapis(base_url="https://tacc.tapis.io",
                   username="your-username",
                   password="your-password",
                   account_type="tacc")

    client.get_tokens()

    # Submit a job
    job_request = {
        "name": "example-job",
        "appId": "hello-world-1.0",
        "archive": True,
        "archiveSystemId": "tacc-archive",
        "archivePath": "your-username/job-output"
    }

    job = client.jobs.submitJob(body=job_request)
    print("Job ID:", job['id'])

    jobs = client.jobs.listJobs()

Tapis API (REST API)

• The raw interface that powers everything behind the scenes.

• Uses standard web protocols (HTTP, HTTPS, GET, POST, PUT, etc.).

• You send requests directly to Tapis endpoints.

• Can be accessed using any language (Python, Java, curl, etc.)

• Requires you to:

  • Build request URLs

  • Add authentication headers

  • Manage tokens

  • Format request bodies (payloads) as JSON

  • Parse JSON responses

  • Handle HTTP errors and headers manually

Example (using curl):

    curl -X GET https://tacc.tapis.io/v3/jobs \
      -H "Authorization: Bearer <token>"

Rule of thumb

“The SDK uses the API under the hood — you don’t lose power, you just lose the pain.”

Why We Use Tapipy

Feature	Tapipy
API coverage	100% (full Tapis API)
Auto-generated	Always current
Authentication	Simplified
Request building	Pass Python dicts
Error handling	Python exceptions
Suitable for	Researchers, students, developers

Summary

• SDK a toolkit that simplifies programming against a complex system like Tapis

• Tapis API = Low-level interface (web-based, language-agnostic)

• Tapis SDK = Python wrapper for the Tapis API (easier for developers)

• SDKs use the API under the hood but hide the complexity – wrap APIs with user-friendly methods in a specific programming language

	Tapis API	Tapis SDK (Tapipy)
Language	Any	Python
Manual token handling	Yes	No
Raw HTTP requests	Yes	No
Recommended for training	⚠ Advanced	✅ Yes