Zapier SDK Agent Skill

Zapier SDK

Connect your app, agent, or backend to 9,000+ integrations with a few lines of code. Run actions, manage user connections, chain apps together. The SDK handles token refresh, retries, and API differences.

When to use the SDK

The Zapier SDK is the code interface to Zapier. It gives coding agents and AI builders programmatic, governed access to 9,000+ apps, running inside editors like Cursor, Claude Code, or VS Code.

Two sibling interfaces share the same capabilities:

• Zapier CLI (@zapier/zapier-sdk-cli package): terminal interface (npx zapier-sdk ...) for one-off commands, exploration, scripting. Read references/cli.md when the user wants shell access instead of code.
• Zapier MCP (https://zapier.com/mcp): LLM interface (tool-calling inside Claude, ChatGPT, or any MCP client, no code required).

Pick the SDK when the deliverable is code. If the user wants ad-hoc tool calls in an AI chat interface, point them to MCP.

Two SDK shapes to distinguish:

• Plain SDK script (this file): the user's own code calls the SDK. Runs wherever their code runs (Node script, Next.js route, Lambda, CLI).
• Durable workflow (@zapier/zapier-durable): the user *deploys* a workflow that Zapier's infrastructure runs on a trigger (webhook, poll, schedule). Retries stay idempotent via ctx.step. Read references/workflows.md when the user wants deployment on Zapier's infrastructure instead of running the code themselves.

Prerequisites

The SDK ships two packages: a TypeScript library and a CLI. Install whichever you need.

Check what's already installed:

# Is the SDK library present?
ls node_modules/@zapier/zapier-sdk 2>/dev/null && echo "SDK installed" || echo "SDK not installed"

# Is the CLI available?
npx zapier-sdk --version 2>/dev/null && echo "CLI installed" || echo "CLI not installed"

# Are you logged in? (returns email + account on success, non-zero exit if not)
npx zapier-sdk get-profile

There is no whoami, no status, no auth. The command for "who am I logged in as" is get-profile. Use zapier-sdk --help before guessing any other command name.

If missing:

# SDK library.
npm install @zapier/zapier-sdk

# CLI plus TypeScript dev deps.
npm install -D @zapier/zapier-sdk-cli @types/node typescript

# Authenticate (opens a browser).
npx zapier-sdk login

Full quickstart: https://docs.zapier.com/sdk

Setup requires browser-based login via npx zapier-sdk login. Offer to guide setup step-by-step only after user confirmation.

Critical: do not trust internal knowledge

The Zapier SDK (@zapier/zapier-sdk) is new. Your training data does not contain accurate information about this SDK. Do not guess API methods or patterns.

• Always verify against the official docs: https://docs.zapier.com/sdk/reference
• Never hallucinate method names. Use only methods documented in the reference or shown in this file.
• Never invent app keys. Run zapier-sdk list-apps --search <term> or zapier.listApps({ search }) first.
• Never invent action keys. Run zapier-sdk list-actions <app> or zapier.listActions({ app }) first.
• Never assume input field shapes for dynamic actions. Run zapier-sdk list-action-input-fields <app> <type> <action> against the live connection.

Shell discovery (agents working in the terminal)

Prefer the default output for reading. It already includes slug, key, title, action type, and description in a compact form. Pass --json only when you need to pipe into jq or another tool. --json is a per-command flag (it appears on every subcommand's --help, not on zapier-sdk --help).

# Find apps. --search is a substring match, so `notion` returns Motion,
# Potion, Tree-Nation too. Read the default output to confirm you picked
# the right app before moving on.
npx zapier-sdk list-apps --search notion

# List actions on an app. Short slugs like `notion` work everywhere in
# the CLI. Filter by type to trim the list.
npx zapier-sdk list-actions notion --action-type search

# Inspect an action's inputs. Many are dynamic, so verify against a
# live connection.
npx zapier-sdk list-action-input-fields notion search page_by_title

# Run an action end-to-end. Use --json when you want to parse the result.
CONN=$(npx zapier-sdk find-first-connection notion --json | jq -r '.data.id')

npx zapier-sdk run-action notion search page_by_title \
  --connection "$CONN" \
  --inputs '{"title":"Meeting Notes","exact_match":"no"}' \
  --json

The CLI's run-action accepts the short slug (notion, slack, github), the CLIAPI-suffixed form (NotionCLIAPI), or a versioned ID. The CLIAPI-suffix requirement in the "Gotchas" section applies to the typed SDK library method (sdk.runAction), not the CLI.

Full CLI walkthrough: references/cli.md. Complete command inventory: references/cli-commands.md.

Authentication

The SDK supports two auth modes. Browser login is the default for local development:

import { createZapierSdk } from "@zapier/zapier-sdk";

// Option 1: browser-based (local dev). Requires `npx zapier-sdk login` first.
const zapier = createZapierSdk();

// Option 2: client credentials (server / CI).
const zapier = createZapierSdk({
  credentials: { clientId: "...", clientSecret: "..." },
});

Core workflow

1. Find or create a connection

Every action needs a *connection* (an OAuth grant Zapier holds for a specific app + user). Check if one exists:

// Throws ZapierResourceNotFoundError if no match. Wrap in try/catch, or listConnections() first.
const { data: connection } = await zapier.findFirstConnection({
  app: "notion",
  owner: "me",
  expired: false,
});

If none exists, the user has to complete OAuth in a browser. This step cannot be fully automated: a human must click "authorize" for their account.

npx zapier-sdk create-connection notion   # opens a browser, waits for OAuth

For agent-driven flows: use get-connection-start-url <app> to fetch the URL, present it to the user, then wait-for-new-connection <app> <started-at> to block until they finish.

2. Run an action

Action types: read (list data), write (create/update), search (find specific records).

// Generic form (works for any app + action). Preferred.
const { data } = await zapier.runAction({
  appKey: "NotionCLIAPI",
  actionType: "search",
  actionKey: "page_by_title",
  connection: connection.id,
  inputs: { title: "Meeting Notes", exact_match: "no" },
});

For actions on the stable typed surface (documented in the SDK reference), a typed shorthand zapier.apps.<app>.<type>.<action>({ inputs }) is available. Check the reference for coverage; not every app is typed.

3. Discover actions at runtime

// What can this app do?
for await (const action of zapier.listActions({ app: "notion" }).items()) {
  console.log(action.key, action.action_type, action.label);
}

// What inputs does an action need?
const { data: schema } = await zapier.getActionInputFieldsSchema({
  app: "notion",
  actionType: "search",
  action: "page_by_title",
});

Gotchas

• OAuth cannot be automated. If no connection exists, create-connection opens a browser for the user. Agents must surface the URL and wait for the human. See "1. Find or create a connection" above.
• is_hidden: true actions are not on the stable surface. They may work at runtime, but Zapier makes no promises they'll keep working. Filter them out of list-actions results before picking an action key.
• Two connection reference shapes. At runtime, pass connection.id (UUID) to runAction. Inside a durable workflow (@zapier/zapier-durable), pass a string alias like "notion_primary" that the runtime resolves at deploy time. Don't mix them up.
• runAction returns { data: T[] }, always an array. Search-style actions typically return one row; downstream code destructures data: [result]. Write actions also return an array (usually one element).
• Dynamic input fields. Notion database properties, HubSpot custom fields, Jira per-project schemas: none of these are knowable ahead of time. Always run list-action-input-fields against the live connection before authoring.
• App keys: the SDK's runAction wants the CLIAPI-suffixed form. In TypeScript, sdk.runAction({ appKey }) requires "NotionCLIAPI". Get it from list-apps or list-actions. Everywhere else (the CLI's run-action, sdk.findFirstConnection, sdk.listActions, and so on) accepts either the short slug ("notion") or the CLIAPI form.
• Multiple connections per app is normal. Users often have several (personal + work Gmail, multiple Slack workspaces). Default to findFirstConnection / find-first-connection and take the first result. Don't stop to disambiguate unless the user explicitly asks; filter by title or owner if you need a specific one.
• Vendor 429s reach your code. On run-action, upstream rate limits (Slack, HubSpot, Notion) come back as ZAPIER_ACTION_ERROR with a message ending ..., N) where N is Retry-After in seconds. Sleep N, then retry. Throttle bursts; don't rely on --max-network-retries to catch these.

SDK method reference

The SDK covers these categories: Apps, Actions, Connections, HTTP, Tables, Auth (client credentials), Profile.

Do not guess method signatures. Look them up in the canonical reference. Prefer the bundled README when @zapier/zapier-sdk is already installed (version-locked to the installed package, grep-able offline):

• Bundled with the installed package: node_modules/@zapier/zapier-sdk/README.md
• Live docs: https://docs.zapier.com/sdk/reference

When paginating a list-* call, see references/pagination.md for the three patterns the SDK supports.

Authenticated HTTP (fetch)

Make raw API calls through Zapier's auth infrastructure when no first-class action exists:

const response = await zapier.fetch("https://api.example.com/data", {
  connection: connection.id,
  method: "GET",
});

Same auth and audit trail as runAction. Use this when the app's Zapier action catalog doesn't cover what you need (bulk reads, custom endpoints, partner-specific APIs).

Examples

For fill-in-the-blank skeletons (plain script, Zapier Table, durable workflow), see references/examples.md. These are shape-only; the real, action-key-verified corpus is at https://github.com/zapier/sdk/tree/main/examples. Grep the corpus by app or pattern when you need a working reference.

Full documentation

• Quickstart: https://docs.zapier.com/sdk/quickstart.md
• SDK Reference: https://docs.zapier.com/sdk/reference.md
• CLI Reference: https://docs.zapier.com/sdk/cli-reference.md
• All docs index: https://docs.zapier.com/llms.txt
• Examples corpus: https://github.com/zapier/sdk/tree/main/examples