Let's see a few examples that you might need from the API.

Generate an API token

In order to use it first you need to sign up to Digital Ocean. Without an account there is no point using the API.

Then you need to create an API token with read-write access.

Keep this code somewhere safe as people who have access to this token can manage your instances.

In order no to copy the token in every command I've created an environment variable:

export DO_API_TOKEN=....

Get the list of images

curl -X GET -H "Content-Type: application/json" -H "Authorization: Bearer $DO_API_TOKEN" "https://api.digitalocean.com/v2/images?type=distribution" > images.json

Use jq to see the file in a readable way:

jq . images.json  | less

or to list the slugs only:

jq .images[].slug images.json

Get the list of Droplet sizes

curl -X GET -H "Content-Type: application/json" -H "Authorization: Bearer $DO_TOKEN" 'https://api.digitalocean.com/v2/sizes' > sizes.json

Get list of SSH keys in your account

curl -X GET -H "Content-Type: application/json" -H "Authorization: Bearer $DO_API_TOKEN" "https://api.digitalocean.com/v2/account/keys" > ssh.json

And then the following to print the IDs and the names respectively.

jq .ssh_keys[].id  ssh.json
jq .ssh_keys[].name  ssh.json


or both of them:

jq '.ssh_keys[] | "\(.id) \(.name)"'  ssh.json