# Use the REST API

> Create an API key, then create documents from your templates, send them, follow each signer, get what they filled in, download the signed PDF and get webhooks, from your own systems, Zapier or Make.

Tally Sign Support › [AI](https://www.tallysign.com/support/ai)

Tally Sign has a REST API for your own systems: a CRM or billing tool you built, a script, or Zapier and Make. It does what the app does with your templates: create a document, send it, remind, void, see who has signed, get what each signer filled in and download the signed PDF. Webhooks tell your system the moment something happens. Every developer detail is on the [developer page](https://www.tallysign.com/developers).

## Create an API key

Only owners and admins create keys. Give each system its own key, so you can tell them apart and revoke one without touching the others.

1. Open **Settings → AI & API** and choose **Create key** under **API keys**.
2. Name it after where it will be used, for example `Billing system` or `Zapier`, and choose **Create key**.
3. Copy the key now. It's shown once. **Try the REST API** has a command that checks it: it answers with your company's name.

![Your new API key: the secret key, the Claude Code command and a curl command to try the REST API](https://www.tallysign.com/university/ai/api-key-created.png)

*The key is shown once, with a command to check it.*

> **Why it matters:** A key acts as the person who created it: documents it sends come from them, and the activity names them. Anyone with the key can send documents as your company, so keep it on a server, never in a web page.

## Send a document from a template

Documents start from a template you made in Tally Sign. Ask for your templates to see each one's roles (who signs) and variables (what to fill in), then create the document:

```
curl https://app.tallysign.com/api/v1/documents \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $TALLY_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "templateId": "<template id>",
    "title": "Mutual NDA — Brightline Logistics",
    "variables": { "nda.effectiveDate": "October 4, 2026" },
    "recipients": [{ "role": "client", "name": "Dana Whitfield", "email": "dana@brightline.example", "company": "Brightline Logistics" }],
    "send": true
  }'
```

- **Your own side fills itself** from the key's person and your company profile, the same as in the app.
- **With `send: true`** it goes out right away. If something is missing, like an email or a required variable, nothing is created and the answer lists what to fix.
- **Without it** you get a draft. Open its `url` to check it in Tally Sign, or send it later through the API.

The document shows in **Documents** like any other, with **Created through the API** in its activity. Reminders, automations, the signed PDF and the Certificate of Completion all work the same.

## Follow it and download the signed PDF

- Ask for a document to see its status, each signer's status, when they viewed and signed, and the activity.
- List documents by status or by when they last changed, for example everything completed since yesterday.
- Once it's completed, download the PDF: the signed document with its Certificate of Completion at the end.
- Remind everyone still waiting, or one signer, and void a document that's out for signature.

## Get what signers filled in

Once a signer signs, the document lists what they entered in each field: under each recipient as `fields` (the field's label, type and value), and the same values as one flat `fieldValues` list named by label, ready to become columns in a spreadsheet. Webhooks for **signed** and **completed** carry them too.

```
"fieldValues": {
  "Number of employees": 240,
  "Region": "North America",
  "Disclosures start": "2026-10-15",
  "Share with affiliates": false,
  "Certificate of insurance": "Brightline COI 2026.pdf"
}
```

- **Only after they sign.** What someone types before signing isn't agreed to, so a signer's values stay empty until they finish.
- **Typed values:** numbers as numbers, checkboxes as true or false, a dropdown or radio as the option chosen, dates as `2026-10-15`. Signatures and initials aren't listed, nor conditional fields that stayed hidden.
- **Named by the field's label.** Give fields clear labels in the template, such as `Number of employees`. A field without one is named by its type, like `Text`; a label used twice by one signer becomes `Label (2)`.
- **On the document,** `fieldValues` has every signer's values together. When two signers have a field with the same label, each is named with their role first, like `Counterparty: Company`.

**Files signers uploaded** are listed with their name, size, type and SHA-256 fingerprint, and a link that downloads them with your API key:

```
curl -L https://app.tallysign.com/api/v1/documents/<document id>/files/<file id> \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $TALLY_API_KEY" -OJ
```

> **Why it matters:** A signed intake form or onboarding packet can fill a spreadsheet row, a CRM record or a folder of W-9s by itself, with exactly what the signer agreed to.

## Get told when it's signed

Instead of asking again and again, subscribe a URL to the events you care about: sent, viewed, signed, completed, declined, voided or expired. Tally Sign posts each event to it, signed with a secret so your system can check it came from Tally Sign. If your URL doesn't answer, Tally Sign tries again for about a day.

Admins see every subscription in **Settings → AI & API → Webhooks from the API**: where events go, which key made it, and whether the last delivery worked. **Remove** stops one. Revoking a key removes its subscriptions.

![Settings → AI & API: API keys with when each was last used, and Webhooks from the API with the URL, events and last delivery](https://www.tallysign.com/university/ai/settings-api-webhooks.png)

*Your keys, and where their webhooks send events.*

> **Note:** Automations can post the same events to a URL without any code: see the **Send to a webhook** step in Automations.

## Zapier and Make

Zapier and Make work with Tally Sign today through webhooks and the API:

- **When a document is signed:** in Zapier, start a Zap with **Webhooks by Zapier → Catch Hook** (in Make, a **Custom webhook**) and add its URL to an automation's **Send to a webhook** step, or subscribe it through the API. What signers filled in arrives as `fieldValues`: map each value to a column, for example in a Google Sheets **Create Spreadsheet Row** step.
- **Send a document:** add a **Webhooks by Zapier → Custom Request** step (in Make, **HTTP → Make a request**) that calls the API with your key, as above.

## Signing inside your own product

To let someone sign on your website or on a device you hand them, send the document, then ask the API for that signer's signing link and open it in their browser. It works while it's their turn to sign. Each link handed out this way is recorded in the document's activity and on the certificate.

> **Watch out:** Whoever opens a signing link can sign as that person. Open it only for them, and never email it to anyone else or keep it.

Next guide: [Work with the assistant by email](https://www.tallysign.com/support/ai/email-assistant)

Source: https://www.tallysign.com/support/ai/use-the-rest-api