Build with an AI assistant

We know that many integrations are now written with the help of an AI assistant. To make that easier and safer, we publish one instruction file for the Effective Tours REST API. You give it to your assistant, and the assistant starts with the right rules instead of guessing.

What the file is

The file is a plain Markdown text, written in English. It tells an assistant how to work with the API using curl:

• how to authenticate and where the key may live;
• the list of all operations, each with a link to the reference;
• short recipes for the common jobs (first connection, mapping rooms and rates, prices, reservation sync, safe booking, changes and cancellations);
• how to handle each error status;
• what the assistant must and must not do. For example, it must not make a write call without your explicit go-ahead, because there is no sandbox and a reservation is real.

Download it here: et-api-agents.md.

Attach it to Claude Code

1. Save the file in your project folder, for example as docs/et-api-agents.md.
2. Open the CLAUDE.md of the project (or the project instructions of your assistant) and add a line that points to the file, for example: "For anything that touches the Effective Tours API, read docs/et-api-agents.md first."
3. Start a new session, so the assistant loads the instructions.

Attach it to Codex

1. Save the file in your repository, for example as docs/et-api-agents.md.
2. Add the same line to AGENTS.md in the repository root.
3. Start a new session.

Other assistants work the same way: put the file where the assistant reads its project instructions, or paste its content at the start of the conversation.

The file is a helper, the spec is the truth

The file can lag behind the API. The machine-readable specification is the source of truth: https://api.effectivetours.com/v1/openapi.json. The file tells the assistant to fetch the specification at the start of every session and to follow it when the two differ.

Keep your API key out of the conversation where you can. Put it in an environment variable on your server, as described in Effective Tours REST API v1.

If your assistant needs something the API does not offer, tell us on the page Feedback: tell us what is missing.