What is mandatory to use Instana REST APIs?

Access to Instana's REST API is secured using authorization tokens—an industry-standard best practice for API authentication and traceability. IBM documentation says: "A personal or team API token is required to authenticate REST API calls."

Tokens serve as credentials embedded in HTTP headers on each request, providing both identity and access control for the API consumer. Tokens are mandatory; without a valid token, any API requests are denied with a 401 Unauthorized error, regardless of whether a tool (such as CURL) is used. Tokens can be scoped for individual users (personal tokens) or teams (team tokens), enabling granular tracking and revocation as part of enterprise security policies. API tokens are generated from the Instana UI under the profile or team section. Cookies and raw client libraries (e.g., Python) are not authentication methods for Instana APIs.