SDKs and HTTP clients

Backwork does not publish SDKs yet. There is no Backwork package on PyPI, RubyGems or NuGet. The @backwork/api name on npm is an empty 0.0.0 placeholder, so do not install it.

The API is plain JSON over HTTPS, so any HTTP client works. You can also generate a typed client from the OpenAPI document.

Call the API directly

Every request needs a live key in the Authorization header. Create one with your organization's free starter credits. The examples read it from BACKWORK_API_KEY:

export BACKWORK_API_KEY=bwk_live_YOUR_API_KEY

Each example looks up CPT code 99213 with GET /api/v1/codes/lookup. It prints the code, its code system and whether Backwork found it. If the call fails, it prints the error code and message. A success response wraps the result in data; an error response has success: false and an error object. See Errors.

curl "https://backworkhealth.com/api/v1/codes/lookup?code=99213" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $BACKWORK_API_KEY"

The API reference lists every endpoint, parameter and response field. Before you retry a failed call, check its retryable flag and the rate limits.

Generate a client

The OpenAPI 3.1 document at https://backworkhealth.com/openapi.json describes every /api/v1 endpoint. Generate a client from it and regenerate when the document changes.

TypeScript: openapi-typescript

openapi-typescript turns the document into types, and openapi-fetch makes typed calls with them:

npm install openapi-fetch
npx openapi-typescript https://backworkhealth.com/openapi.json -o backwork.d.ts

import createClient from "openapi-fetch";

import type { paths } from "./backwork.d.ts";

const backwork = createClient<paths>({
  baseUrl: "https://backworkhealth.com/api/v1",
  headers: { Authorization: `Bearer ${process.env.BACKWORK_API_KEY}` },
});

const { data, error } = await backwork.GET("/codes/lookup", { params: { query: { code: "99213" } } });
if (data) console.log(data.data.code, data.data.code_system, data.data.found);
else console.log(error.error.code, error.error.message);

Other languages: OpenAPI Generator

OpenAPI Generator reads the document and emits clients for Python, Ruby, Go, C#, Java and many more:

docker run --rm -v "$PWD:/local" openapitools/openapi-generator-cli:v7.12.0 generate \
  -i https://backworkhealth.com/openapi.json \
  -g python \
  -o /local/backwork-client

Swap -g python for ruby, go, csharp or java. Generated method names follow each endpoint's operationId, such as lookupCode.

Command line

The Backwork CLI is a single Go binary for lookups from a terminal or a script.

Use Backwork from an AI assistant

The MCP server connects Claude and other MCP clients to Backwork with no code.

Last updated on