Programmatic Access

iFlow exposes two surfaces for automation and integration: a command-line client (iflow) and an HTTP API. They cover the same underlying capabilities — pick based on the use case.

CLI vs API — which to use?

Use case	CLI	API
Interactive use from a terminal	✅	—
Shell scripts, cron jobs, CI/CD	✅	also possible
Integration from another service (LIMS, instrument vendor)	—	✅
One-off file upload / download	✅	also possible
Bulk operations (many samples / orders)	✅ (built-in)	possible (you assemble)
Custom UI / portal	—	✅
Production system-to-system	—	✅

Rule of thumb: humans and scripts → CLI; other systems → API.

"Give me the curl command"

The CLI has a --curl flag on most commands that prints the equivalent curl invocation instead of executing. This is the fastest way to learn the API:

iflow samples list --project my-project --curl
# prints:
# curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $IFLOW_TOKEN" \
#      https://api.iflow.intelliseq.com/api/v1/samples?project=my-project

Use this whenever the docs don't cover an endpoint you need — the CLI is the source of truth.

Sections

• CLI — installation, authentication, command reference.
• API — endpoint reference, authentication, error codes.
• LIS Integration — pre-built integration patterns for laboratory information systems.