finch-api 0.1.0

Client library for the Finch API

Finch Python API Library

The Finch Python library provides convenient access to the Finch REST API from any Python 3.7+ application. It includes type definitions for all request params and response fields, and offers both synchronous and asynchronous clients powered by httpx.

Documentation

The API documentation can be found here.

Installation

pip install finch-api

Usage

from finch import Finch

client = Finch(
    access_token="my access token",
)

candidate = client.ats.candidates.retrieve(
    "<candidate id>",
)
print(candidate.first_name)

Async Usage

Simply import AsyncFinch instead of Finch and use await with each API call:

from finch import AsyncFinch

client = AsyncFinch(
    access_token="my access token",
)


async def main():
    candidate = await client.ats.candidates.retrieve(
        "<candidate id>",
    )
    print(candidate.first_name)


asyncio.run(main())

Functionality between the synchronous and asynchronous clients is otherwise identical.

Using Types

Nested request parameters are TypedDicts, while responses are Pydantic models. This helps provide autocomplete and documentation within your editor.

If you would like to see type errors in VS Code to help catch bugs earlier, set python.analysis.typeCheckingMode to "basic".

Pagination

List methods in the Finch API are paginated.

This library provides auto-paginating iterators with each list response, so you do not have to request successive pages manually:

import finch

client = Finch()

all_jobs = []
# Automatically fetches more pages as needed.
for job in client.ats.jobs.list():
    # Do something with job here
    all_jobs.append(job)
print(all_jobs)

Or, asynchronously:

import asyncio
import finch

client = AsyncFinch()


async def main() -> None:
    all_jobs = []
    # Iterate through items across all pages, issuing requests as needed.
    async for job in client.ats.jobs.list():
        all_jobs.append(job)
    print(all_jobs)


asyncio.run(main())

Alternatively, you can use the .has_next_page(), .next_page_info(), or .get_next_page() methods for more granular control working with pages:

first_page = await client.ats.jobs.list()
if first_page.has_next_page():
    print(f"will fetch next page using these details: {first_page.next_page_info()}")
    next_page = await first_page.get_next_page()
    print(f"number of items we just fetched: {len(next_page.jobs)}")

# Remove `await` for non-async usage.

Or just work directly with the returned data:

first_page = await client.ats.jobs.list()

print(
    f"the current start offset for this page: {first_page.paging.offset}"
)  # => "the current start offset for this page: 1"
for job in first_page.jobs:
    print(job.id)

# Remove `await` for non-async usage.

Nested params

Nested parameters are dictionaries, typed using TypedDict, for example:

from finch import Finch

client = Finch()

client.hris.directory.list_individuals(
    path_params=[],
    params={},
)

Handling errors

When the library is unable to connect to the API (e.g., due to network connection problems or a timeout), a subclass of finch.APIConnectionError is raised.

When the API returns a non-success status code (i.e., 4xx or 5xx response), a subclass of finch.APIStatusError will be raised, containing status_code and response properties.

All errors inherit from finch.APIError.

import finch
from finch import Finch

client = Finch()

try:
    client.hris.directory.list_individuals()
except finch.APIConnectionError as e:
    print("The server could not be reached")
    print(e.__cause__)  # an underlying Exception, likely raised within httpx.
except finch.RateLimitError as e:
    print("A 429 status code was received; we should back off a bit.")
except finch.APIStatusError as e:
    print("Another non-200-range status code was received")
    print(e.status_code)
    print(e.response)

Error codes are as followed:

Status Code	Error Type
400	BadRequestError
401	AuthenticationError
403	PermissionDeniedError
404	NotFoundError
422	UnprocessableEntityError
429	RateLimitError
>=500	InternalServerError
N/A	APIConnectionError

Retries

Certain errors will be automatically retried 2 times by default, with a short exponential backoff. Connection errors (for example, due to a network connectivity problem), 409 Conflict, 429 Rate Limit, and >=500 Internal errors will all be retried by default.

You can use the max_retries option to configure or disable this:

from finch import Finch

# Configure the default for all requests:
client = Finch(
    # default is 2
    max_retries=0,
)

# Or, configure per-request:
client.with_options(max_retries=5).hris.directory.list_individuals()

Timeouts

Requests time out after 1 minute by default. You can configure this with a timeout option, which accepts a float or an httpx.Timeout:

from finch import Finch

# Configure the default for all requests:
client = Finch(
    # default is 60s
    timeout=20.0,
)

# More granular control:
client = Finch(
    timeout=httpx.Timeout(60.0, read=5.0, write=10.0, connect=2.0),
)

# Override per-request:
client.with_options(timeout=5 * 1000).hris.directory.list_individuals()

On timeout, an APITimeoutError is thrown.

Note that requests which time out will be retried twice by default.

Default Headers

We automatically send the Finch-API-Version header set to 2020-09-17.

If you need to, you can override it by setting default headers per-request or on the client object.

Be aware that doing so may result in incorrect types and other unexpected or undefined behavior in the SDK.

from finch import Finch

client = Finch(
    default_headers={"Finch-API-Version": "My-Custom-Value"},
)

Advanced: Configuring custom URLs, proxies, and transports

You can configure the following keyword arguments when instantiating the client:

import httpx
from finch import Finch

client = Finch(
    # Use a custom base URL
    base_url="http://my.test.server.example.com:8083",
    proxies="http://my.test.proxy.example.com",
    transport=httpx.HTTPTransport(local_address="0.0.0.0"),
)

See the httpx documentation for information about the proxies and transport keyword arguments.

Advanced: Managing HTTP resources

By default we will close the underlying HTTP connections whenever the client is garbage collected is called but you can also manually close the client using the .close() method if desired, or with a context manager that closes when exiting.

Versioning

This package generally attempts to follow SemVer conventions, though certain backwards-incompatible changes may be released as minor versions:

1. Changes that only affect static types, without breaking runtime behavior.
2. Changes to library internals which are technically public but not intended or documented for external use. (Please open a GitHub issue to let us know if you are relying on such internals).
3. Changes that we do not expect to impact the vast majority of users in practice.

We take backwards-compatibility seriously and work hard to ensure you can rely on a smooth upgrade experience.

We are keen for your feedback; please open an issue with questions, bugs, or suggestions.

Requirements

Python 3.7 or higher.