# Get a connection with its authoritative record set

> Get a connection with its authoritative record set: CustomDomain™ API reference in the connections group. Covers parameters, request body and responses.

Source: https://docs.customdomain.ai/docs/api-reference/connections/getConnection

## `GET https://api.customdomain.ai/v1/connections/{id}`

Returns the connection object and its records. The connection carries a `managed` boolean: `true` when it opted in to **managed mode** (the control plane holds a durable, encrypted async grant so it can re-apply / revert the template server-side without re-consent); `false` (omitted on the wire) for the default use-once connection.

`dns_hosting` says who runs the domain's DNS, and `reach` how CustomDomain™ reaches it to write records (a kept account, a kept sign-in, one-click setup, DNS hosting, or nothing). `reach` is for the platform's own servers (an API key, an `app`-scoped token or an agent token); an end user's `connect`-scoped token reads `dns_hosting` only.

A delegated agent token needs `domains:read` and reads only connections of its own application; another application's connection answers `404`. Its answer leaves out what the account routes leave out for it: the `credential` carries no `account` (the customer number at the provider), no `session_id` and no `name`, for any key, an end user's included, and a `reach` through a key made for another application reads `<Provider> key` as its `label`, since the label the agent made the key with names that application's domain. It also reads no `end_user_ref`, the platform's id for its end user, which the account answers leave out for it too and a connection shares with its end user's key. An API key reads all of it whole.

A widget token must be the connection's end user: a connection that names another end user than the token's `end_user_ref`, or names one while the token names none, answers `403` `token_wrong_end_user` before anything is read or changed, and a connection that names none is any token's. An API key, an app-scoped token and a delegated agent token are not limited by it.

### Authentication

`widgetJWT`, `apiKey`, `agentToken`

### Parameters

| Name | In | Type | Required | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `id` | path | string | yes |  |

### Responses

| Status | Description |
| --- | --- |
| `200` | Connection |
| `401` | Error envelope: {code, title, details}. |
| `403` | `forbidden`: the credential may not do this. `token_wrong_end_user`: a widget token that is not this connection's end user (the connection names another end user than the token's `end_user_ref`, or names one while the token names none); nothing is read or changed, and the answer shows nothing of the connection. Mint the token with the end user's `end_user_ref`. |
| `404` | Error envelope: {code, title, details}. |

### `200` response body

| Field | Type | Required | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `id` | string | yes |  |
| `application_id` | string | yes |  |
| `domain` | string | yes |  |
| `host` | string | no | subdomain label; empty means the apex |
| `provider_id` | string | no | detected / applied DNS provider |
| `setup_type` | `automatic`, `manual`, `async`, `mcp` | yes | How a connection reaches live. |
| `status` | `pending`, `propagating`, `live`, `failed` | yes |  |
| `managed` | boolean | no | `true` when the connection opted into **managed mode**: the control plane holds a durable, encrypted async grant and can re-apply (`POST /v1/connections/{id}:reapply`) or revert (`DELETE /v1/connections/{id}`) the template server-side without re-consent. Omitted (treated as `false`) for the default use-once connection. |
| `created_at` | string | yes |  |
| `sandbox` | boolean | no | `true` when the connection belongs to a test mode application. Its DNS is simulated, nothing real is read, written or served, and it counts for nothing (no free domain, quota, billing or metering). Copied from the application at create and never changed. Omitted (treated as `false`) on a real connection. |
| `last_checked_at` | string | no | When the propagation poller last examined this connection. Omitted until the first check. |
| `www_redirect` | boolean | no | Serve an apex↔www redirect. Echoed from create. |
| `override_spf` | boolean | no | Replace an existing SPF record instead of merging into it, where the provider supports it. Echoed from create. |
| `validate_dmarc` | boolean | no | Stored and echoed from create; not acted on yet. |
| `validate_caa` | boolean | no | Whether the Let's Encrypt CAA records are part of the desired record set. Echoed from create. |
| `monitor` | boolean | no | Whether the domain is enrolled in drift monitoring. Echoed from create, where it defaults to true when omitted, and honoured: the drift watch is registered when the connection goes live only if this is true. Connections created before the flag was honoured read true (they were monitored unconditionally, and were backfilled), so this is false only where a caller explicitly opted out. |
| `batch_id` | string | no | The multi-domain session this connection was created in. Omitted for a standalone connect. |
| `end_user_ref` | string | no | The integrator's own identifier for the end user who connected this domain. Set once at create and never changed: it binds widget tokens and saved access to the connection. Omitted for a console/direct connect, and from every answer a delegated agent token reads. The name of the client a domain is for is `client_label`. |
| `client_label` | string | no | The name of the client or customer the domain is for, set at create or with `PATCH /connections/{id}`. Omitted when none is set. It is the platform's own note about the client: it is left out of every answer an end user's widget token or a delegated agent token reads, and an API key or an `app`-scoped token reads it. |
| `retried_at` | string | no | When a human (or the create-path resume, or real edge traffic) last asked for this connection to be re-verified. The retry clock is max(created_at, retried_at): a revived connection gets a fresh window from here, not from its original creation. Absent when it was never retried. |
| `routing` | object | no | Where this domain points: its application's routing when the connection was created. A change to the application's routing moves it only while it is still waiting for DNS; once connected it keeps this until `POST /v1/connections/{id}:retarget` moves it. Omitted only for a connection created before this was recorded, which follows its application's current routing. |
| `records_source` | `integrator` | no | Present as `integrator` when the connection's desired record set was supplied through `PUT /v1/connections/{id}/records` rather than authored by us. Omitted for the usual server-synthesized or Domain Connect template-materialized set. Such a connection cannot use the Domain Connect rail, which applies our published templates at the provider. |
| `created_via` | `""`, `widget`, `console`, `api`, `agent`, `mcp` | no | Where the connection was created, recorded once at create and never changed. `widget`: an end user's connect-scoped widget token (the embedded widget in your product). `console`: the CustomDomain™ console. `api`: an API key, or an app-scoped token, from your server. `agent`: a delegated agent access token. `mcp`: the MCP server. Empty for connections created before this was recorded. A trusted server-side caller may name its surface with the `X-CustomDomain-Client` request header (`console` or `mcp`); the header is a label only and grants nothing. |
| `secure_root_domain` | boolean | no | The edge also issues/secures the registrable apex alongside this subdomain connection. Omitted (treated as `false`) when unset. |
| `redirect_to` | string | no | URL the edge 301s this host to (Power redirect target). Omitted when the connection is not a redirect. |
| `power_root_path_access` | array of string | no | URL paths the edge may static-serve at the root (Power root-path access). Omitted when none are configured. |
| `error_code` | string | no | The last failure reason recorded for this connection, from whichever path failed, not only the background poller. It is persisted by: the propagation poller / `:recheck` verification (e.g. `propagation_timeout`, `setup_incomplete`, `pending_expired`, `domain_already_connected`); the foreground apply on `POST /connections/{id}/apply` (e.g. `dns_write_failed`, `ProviderAuthenticationError`, `spf_merge_failed`, `apex_not_supported`, `forwarding_not_supported`, `porkbun_api_access_disabled`); the OAuth callback (which also records `forwarding_not_supported`); and the Domain Connect async callback (both e.g. `provider_unavailable`, `ProviderAuthenticationError`, `apply_failed`, `internal_error`, or the provider's own `error` parameter). Rejected request validation (`400`) is deliberately NOT recorded here: a malformed request is not a connection failure. Omitted when healthy or never failed; cleared when the connection next verifies. |
| `error_message` | string | no | Human-readable detail for `error_code`. Populated on the same paths and cleared alongside it. Omitted when there is none. |
| `write_rail` | `api_key`, `sign_in`, `domain_connect`, `domain_connect_async`, `route53_role`, `provider_account`, `managed_dns` | no | The rail that last wrote this connection's records. Omitted when no rail wrote them (a manual setup, or a connection from before this was recorded). It decides what removing the domain can do with the records (`GET /connections/{id}/removal`). |
| `provider_account_id` | string | no | The connected provider account whose credential wrote this connection's records and, when the account's access is `continuous`, keeps them (repairs and removal). Omitted when none. |
| `removal_started_at` | string | no | Set while the domain is being removed: the records are being taken out and the connection is deleted when that finishes. The domain no longer serves from this moment. Omitted otherwise. |
| `dns_hosting` | object | no | Who runs the domain's DNS: a zone CustomDomain™ hosts, or a move to one. It is read from the managed DNS zone the connection is linked to and the workspace's nameserver moves, never from the connection itself, so it is on the list and on `GET /connections/{id}` and nowhere else a connection appears. A linked zone decides first (`active` is hosted, `awaiting_delegation` is moving, `failed` is failed). Without one, a nameserver move of the workspace on the domain or a parent of it decides (`active` is hosted, a move still under way is moving, one that failed because the domain's nameservers moved away again is failed; a rolled back or otherwise failed move counts for nothing). A test mode connection is always `none`. |
| `records` | array of object | yes |  |
| `end_user_email` | string | no | The end user's email address, when one was given and the feature is on. Present only on the response of the call that created the connection with it, and on `GET /connections/{id}` with an API key. Never in a list, a webhook, or any read by a widget token. |
| `ask_end_user_email` | boolean | no | Present (true) on a create response only when the widget should offer the end user an optional email field: the feature is on, the caller is a widget token that may set one (not another end user's), the domain is not a test domain and the connection has no address yet. The widget then calls `PUT /connections/{id}/end-user-email`. Omitted otherwise. |
| `credential` | object | no | The lasting API key the cloud browser's agent made at the domain's DNS provider for this connection, on `GET /connections/{id}` only: its record, never the key. Omitted when the connection has none. |
| `reach` | object | no | How CustomDomain™ reaches this domain's DNS to write records, from the access we keep (the order we use it: a zone we host, a kept sign-in or Domain Connect authorization, a connected account, the Route 53 role) and the domain's DNS hosting. A domain whose DNS is hosted is reached by the hosting, whoever runs the zone: an old sign-in or account at the previous DNS provider no longer writes anywhere that serves it. |

The full specification is served at `GET https://api.customdomain.ai/v1/openapi.json`.