Step 1: Provisioning resources

All the API calls described in this tutorial use the Cloudflare client v4 interface at https://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4. API requests are authenticated in the same manner, using a Cloudflare user’s email and API key as the x-auth-email and x-auth-key headers. Your Cloudflare user must be active, verified, and enabled by Cloudflare to use these provisioning specific endpoints.

More details about making Cloudflare API calls can be found in our general api docs Open external link .

​​ Creating an account

Each customer or team that uses Cloudflare should have their own account. This ensures proper security and access of resources. Each account acts as a container of zones and other resources. Depending on your needs, you may even provision multiple accounts for a single customer or team.

To create an account, make a POST API request to the /accounts endpoint.

The required values are:

Name (string): The name of the account that is displayed in the Cloudflare dashboard.

Type (enum): Valid values are standard (default) and enterprise. For self-serve customers, use standard. For enterprise customers, use enterprise.

Example:

curl -X POST https://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/accounts -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -H 'x-auth-email: <x-auth-email>' -H 'x-auth-key: <x-auth-key>' \
-d '{ "name": "<Account Name>", \
      "type": "standard" }'

A successful request will return an HTTP status of 200 and the following response body:

{
  "result": {
    "id": "2bab6ace8c72ed3f09b9eca6db1396bb",
    "name": "<Account Name>",
    "type": "standard",
    "settings": {
      "enforce_twofactor": false
    }
  },
  "success": true,
  "errors": [],
  "messages": []
}

​​ Fetching accounts

You own the account lifecycle from creation, ongoing management, and finally deletion. To see the newly created account, make a GET /accounts request:

curl -X GET https://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/accounts -H 'x-auth-email: <x-auth-email>' -H 'x-auth-key: <x-auth-key>'

You will get back a list of all the accounts you have created plus any accounts your user already had access to:

{
  "result": [
    {
      "id": "a34bd6cc645a31486aa2ef71f1b9afb6",
      "name": "My Personal Account",
      "settings": {
        "enforce_twofactor": false
      }
    },
    {
      "id": "1b16db169c9cb7853009857198fae1b9",
      "name": "Created Account",
      "settings": {
        "enforce_twofactor": false
      }
    }
  ],
  "result_info": {
    "page": 1,
    "per_page": 20,
    "total_pages": 1,
    "count": 2,
    "total_count": 2
  },
  "success": true,
  "errors": [],
  "messages": []
}

​​ (Optional) Deleting an account

If for any reason you need to delete an account you created, call DELETE /accounts/:account_id.

curl -X DELETE https://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/accounts/<account_id> -H 'x-auth-email: <x-auth-email>' -H 'x-auth-key: <x-auth-key>'

A successful request will return the id to confirm the operation:

{
  "result": {
    "id": "1b16db169c9cb7853009857198fae1b9"
  },
  "success": true,
  "errors": [],
  "messages": []
}

Now that we have created an account, visualized existing accounts and learned how to delete an account, in the next step we will give another person access to the account.

​​ Next step

Learn how to manage external customers access to Cloudflare.