Use the Push API
Use the Push API
The Push API exposes services that let you push items and their permission models into a source, and security identities into a security identity provider, rather than letting standard Coveo crawlers pull this content.
The Push API doesn’t have a graphical user interface, so you must perform your own HTTP requests to use its services.
The articles in this section explain how to use the Push API.
Architecture diagram
The following diagram shows the main interactions between a custom crawler, the Push API, and a Coveo organization.

Prerequisites
To index content using the Push API, you need the following:
See the Push source creation and post-creation steps for detailed instructions.
Push API usage
After completing the setup covered in the prerequisites section, you can use the Push API. This involves writing code that will run periodically to:
Getting started and beyond
The Coveo Push API is a powerful tool, but it can be complex to use. The following recommendations will help you get up and running quickly—and guide you toward a successful project implementation.
Plan your project
Read the Custom connector planning guide article for best practices and resources to help you get started and reduce development time.
Use the resources at your disposal
Refer to the following resources for help:
-
The Push API usage example and tutorials, for a guided experience.
-
The Push API reference, for a complete list of available requests.
-
Your region-specific Swagger UI ( US | EU | AU | CA ), for interactive reference documentation.
-
The Coveo C# Platform SDK, for a simplified way to interact with the Push API.
-
The Troubleshooting Push source issues article, for common problems and solutions.
Avoid performing Push API requests on product-managed sources
Avoid setting orderingId values
Let the service set the orderingId
value automatically, except when performing Delete old items
and Delete old security identities
requests.
If you have a good reason for setting your own orderingId
values, proceed with caution.
Prioritize batch updates
Only use single item and security identity requests when testing or performing small updates. Use batch item and batch security identity update requests the rest of the time.
Using batch updates allows you to keep your number of Push API requests per hour relatively low. See Push API limits for details.
Update your Push source status
Consider updating the status of a Push source before and after each set of content update requests.
For example, before you begin indexing new or updated content, set the source status to REBUILD
, RESCAN
, or REFRESH
, as appropriate.
After completing the indexing process, set the status back to IDLE
.
Updating your Push source status allows you to keep coherent source activity logs in your Coveo organization.
Troubleshooting
Push API operations can fail at different stages of the process:
-
On the API call: In such cases, refer to the Common Push API errors section of the troubleshooting article for error codes and solutions.
-
After the API call: In such cases, refer to the Indexing process and other issues section of the troubleshooting article. The Log Browser (platform-ca | platform-eu | platform-au) typically logs these issues and can help you identify the problem.