Panther API

Use Panther's GraphQL API for alert, role, and user management, and data lake querying

Overview

Panther offers a public GraphQL-over-HTTP API, meaning you can write GraphQL queries and invoke the API using a typical HTTP request. For more information on GraphQL, see GraphQL's documentation.

For a list of supported operations, see Panther API Operations.

Understanding a GraphQL query

Click to expand GraphQL query example

The example query below is named ListAlerts. This query will return a list of alerts including every alert's id, title, severity and status based on the time range provided.

The input variable of type AlertsInput is used to filter the alerts based on certain conditions, such as createdAtAfter and createdAtBefore. Those conditions will provide a time range for the query.
The alerts field returns an object with edges and pageInfo. Each edge has a node field that contains the actual alert data, such as id, title, severity and status.
The pageInfo field contains information on pagination, such as hasNextPage and endCursor, which allows the user to loop through all the pages of alerts once hasNextPage becomes false.

query ListAlerts($input: AlertsInput!) {
    alerts(input: $input) {
      edges {
        node {
          id
          title
          severity
          status
        }
      }
      pageInfo {
        hasNextPage
        endCursor
      }
    }
  }

How to use Panther's API

Step 1: Choose a method for invoking the API

You can create and modify Panther API queries using one of the following methods:

API Playground in the Panther Console
- The API Playground allows you to try out your GraphQL queries, view the results and explore the API documentation all in one page. It comes with features to format your query and copy a curl operation of your query.
GraphQL-over-HTTP API
- You can install and use a GraphQL client (recommended), or manually construct your HTTP calls.

Step 2: Create an API token

Log in to your Panther Console.
In the upper right corner, click the gear icon. In the dropdown menu, click API Tokens.
Click Create an API Token.
Provide a Name, and choose the permissions you'd like to grant the token.
- See the required permissions per Panther Analysis Tool (PAT) command here.
In the IP Restrictions section, in the CIDR Blocks field, enter one or more IP addresses to which you'd like to restrict usage of the token, if any.
- Enter the IP address(es) in CIDR notation, e.g., 10.0.0.0/8 or 8.8.8.8/32.
- If no IP addresses are specified, the token will be usable by any IP address.
Click Create API Token.

You will see a success screen that displays the value of the API token. Please note that the API token is sensitive information and it will not be displayed again; make sure you copy the API token and store it in a secure location.

The image shows the success screen after you create an API Key. At the top, it says "API Key Created". There is a drawing of two people holding up a green checkmark. The API Key in this screen shot is blurred out. Beneath the key there is a blue button labeled "Done."

Testing the API token

There may be a propagation delay of 30 to 60 seconds after adding an API token.

After generating an API token, you can test to verify that it works as expected:

On the API token creation success screen, click the link that says Give it a go on our Playground.
Locate the REQUEST HEADERS tab at the bottom-left corner of the Playground screen. Under this tab, change the default value of the X-API-Key header from <ENTER_YOUR_KEY_HERE> to the value of your API token.
In the upper left corner, press the "play" icon to run the test.

The image shows the API Playground from the Panther Console. At the top, a play icon button is circled. On the left, a code box contains an example query. Beneath that, the header "Request Header" is circled. On the right, there is a section labeled "Documentation Explorer".

You can discover the available queries, mutations, and fields by clicking Documentation Explorer on the right side panel of the Playground.

For additional ways to discover the schema, see Discovering the Schema.

Once you have successfully created an API token, remember to periodically rotate it. See instructions for token rotation in Rotating API tokens, below.

Step 3: Invoke the API

Prerequisites

To invoke the API using an HTTP curl operation, you will need the following information:

The GraphQL endpoint to hit
- The GraphQL API endpoint is tied to your Panther domain and the API URL format is https://api.{YOUR_PANTHER_DOMAIN}/public/graphql.
  - To find this URL In your Panther Console, click the gear icon in the upper right corner, then API Tokens:
The auth-related header
- The auth-related header is called X-API-Key and its value should always be a valid API token that you generated in the Panther Console.
A GraphQL query
- The GraphQL query differs from use case to use case. Please refer to our schema discoverability page or our common operations for more on this topic.

Invoking the API

There are two ways to invoke a GraphQL-over-HTTP API:

Option 1: Install and use a GraphQL Client to abstract the transport-related complexities (recommended)
Option 2: Manually construct an HTTP call

Option 1: Installing and Using GraphQL Clients (Recommended)

While all GraphQL operations are essentially simple HTTP calls, the advantage of using a GraphQL client is that it is more user-friendly.

We recommend using:

graphql-request for your NodeJS projects
gql for your Python projects
go-graphql-client for your Go projects

Below you'll find some examples of how you would construct a GraphQL query to fetch the first page of alerts in your system:

// npm install graphql graphql-request

import { GraphQLClient, gql } from 'graphql-request';

const client = new GraphQLClient(
  'YOUR_PANTHER_API_URL', 
  { headers: { 'X-API-Key': 'YOUR_API_KEY' } 
});

// `PaginateAlerts` is a nickname for the operation
const query = gql` 
  query PaginateAlerts {
  alerts(
  input: {
    createdAtAfter: "2023-06-14T21:00:00Z",
    createdAtBefore: "2023-06-21T21:59:59Z"
  }) {
    edges {
      node {
        id
        title
        severity
        status
      }
    }
    pageInfo {
      hasNextPage
      endCursor
    }
  }
}
`;

client.request(query).then((data) => console.log(data));

# pip install gql aiohttp

from gql import gql, Client
from gql.transport.aiohttp import AIOHTTPTransport

transport = AIOHTTPTransport(
  url="YOUR_PANTHER_API_URL",
  headers={"X-API-Key": "YOUR_API_KEY"}
)

client = Client(transport=transport, fetch_schema_from_transport=True)

# `PaginateAlerts` is a nickname for the operation
query = gql(
  """
  query PaginateAlerts {
  alerts(
  input: {
    createdAtAfter: "2023-06-14T21:00:00Z",
    createdAtBefore: "2023-06-21T21:59:59Z"
  }) {
    edges {
      node {
        id
        title
        severity
        status
      }
    }
    pageInfo {
      hasNextPage
      endCursor
    }
  }
}
  """
)

result = client.execute(query)
print(result)

// go get -u github.com/hasura/go-graphql-client

package main

import (
  "context"
  "encoding/json"
  "fmt"
  "net/http"

  "github.com/hasura/go-graphql-client"
)

// Strongly-typed languages don't pair well with GraphQL
var query struct {
  Alerts struct {
    Edges []struct {
      Node struct {
        Id       graphql.String
        Title    graphql.String
        Severity graphql.String
        Status   graphql.String
      }
    }
    PageInfo struct {
      HasNextPage graphql.Boolean
      EndCursor   graphql.String
    }
  } `graphql:"alerts(input: { createdAtAfter: \"2023-06-14T21:00:00Z\", createdAtBefore: \"2023-06-21T21:59:59Z\" })"`
}

func main() {
  client := graphql.
    NewClient("YOUR_PANTHER_API_URL", nil).
    WithRequestModifier(func(req *http.Request) {
      req.Header.Set("X-API-KEY", "YOUR_API_KEY")
    })

  if err := client.Query(context.Background(), &query, nil); err != nil {
    panic(err)
  }

  formattedResult, _ := json.MarshalIndent(query.Alerts, "", "\t")
  fmt.Println(string(formattedResult))
  fmt.Println(query.Alerts.PageInfo.HasNextPage)
}

You can find all available operations of the API, as well as detailed end-to-end examples in the subpages of the current page. For a high level list, check out our supported operations.

Option 2: Manually Constructing HTTP Calls

An example request:

curl 'YOUR_PANTHER_GRAPHQL_API_URL' \
-H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
-H 'X-API-Key: {YOUR_API_KEY}' \
-d '{"query":"\n query Foo {\n alerts {\n edges {\n node {\n id\n }\n }\n }\n }","variables":{}}'

The query above returns the first page of all of your Panther alerts. If it's the first time you're using GraphQL, please note the following:

There's only one endpoint.
The HTTP operation is always a POST.
The API operations are defined in POST's body.
The body of the POST operation always contains the following keys:
- query - a GraphQL string defining the GraphQL operation that should be executed
- variables - an optional set of variables that will be passed along to the query
- operationName - an optional "nickname" for this operation
You must always select a set of fields to return (if the operation returns data.)

Note: The only thing that would change from one GraphQL operation to another is the body of the HTTP POST.

Step 4: Discover the schema

There are three options to discover the GraphQL schema:

Option 1: Download the publicly available GraphQL schema file (quickest)
Option 2: Use Panther's API Playground (most user-friendly)
Option 3: Perform an introspection query against the GraphQL endpoint (best for tools and services)

Option 1: Download the publicly available GraphQL schema file

You can download the latest version of the GraphQL schema file here.

Option 3: Performing an introspection query

An introspection query yields all the GraphQL API's entities in a format that most third-party libraries can parse. This discoverability option is useful if you want to make another library or service aware of the supported operations and types that the Panther API has. These libraries typically issue their own version of an introspection query, so they only need to be pointed to an API URL.

For security purposes, the introspection query is an authorized operation. This means that you'll need to add an X-API-Key header to your HTTP call with the value of an API Token in order for the introspection to work.

$ curl -H "X-API-Key: <API_KEY>" -d <INTROSPECTION_QUERY> <YOUR_PANTHER_API_URL>

The actual shape of the introspection query is customizable. You can ask for a limited set of entities or for all possible information about the schema. For example, a query such as the following would yield every single piece of schema information:

query IntrospectionQuery {
    __schema {
      queryType { name }
      mutationType { name }
      types {
        ...FullType
      }
      directives {
        name
        description
        locations
        args {
          ...InputValue
        }
      }
    }
  }
  fragment FullType on __Type {
    kind
    name
    description
    fields(includeDeprecated: true) {
      name
      description
      args {
        ...InputValue
      }
      type {
        ...TypeRef
      }
      isDeprecated
      deprecationReason
    }
    inputFields {
      ...InputValue
    }
    interfaces {
      ...TypeRef
    }
    enumValues(includeDeprecated: true) {
      name
      description
      isDeprecated
      deprecationReason
    }
    possibleTypes {
      ...TypeRef
    }
  }
  fragment InputValue on __InputValue {
    name
    description
    type { ...TypeRef }
    defaultValue
  }
  fragment TypeRef on __Type {
    kind
    name
    ofType {
      kind
      name
      ofType {
        kind
        name
        ofType {
          kind
          name
          ofType {
            kind
            name
            ofType {
              kind
              name
              ofType {
                kind
                name
                ofType {
                  kind
                  name
                }
              }
            }
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }

Rotating API tokens

API tokens are used to authenticate against and authorize access to Panther’s public API. As with username and password credentials, you should store API tokens securely to protect them from bad actors. Rotating your token periodically may lessen the likelihood of it being compromised. The Center for Internet Security (CIS) and National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) recommend rotating API tokens every 90 days.

You can rotate your API token either in your Panther Console, or by calling Panther's API itself. Once you've rotated your token, the previous one is no longer valid.

Rotate an API token in the Panther Console

To rotate your API token in the Panther Console:

Log in to your Panther Console.
In the upper right, click the gear icon, then API Tokens.
Locate the token you'd like to rotate. In the upper right corner of its tile, click the three dots icon, then Rotate.
On the confirmation modal that pops up, click Continue.
The modal will display your new API token. You will only see this once, so be sure to copy and store it in a secure location.

Supported operations and examples

The Panther API supports an ever-growing set of capabilities that allow you to build your security workflows, as well as an API Playground to test operations.

Examples for supported operations

See Panther API Operations for a list of supported API operations and examples.

Example: Getting your Panther Version

Use the following query to confirm your Panther version.

query PantherVersion {
    generalSettings {
        pantherVersion
    }
}

Troubleshooting the Panther API

Visit the Panther Knowledge Base to view articles about the Panther API that answer frequently asked questions and help you resolve common errors and issues.

PreviousManaging Panther Content via GitHub Actions NextPanther API Operations

Last updated 2 years ago

Was this helpful?