Instance name

The instance is the technical merchant identifier inside FlowAlp Pay. It is used in the payment page domain and in Merchant API requests.

Core concepts

Do not confuse the instance with:

Identifier | Meaning
Instance name | Technical FlowAlp Pay merchant name (this article)
FlowAlp Organization ID | Organization identifier in the FlowAlp Dashboard
User ID | User account
Gateway ID | ID of a payment Gateway
Transaction ID | ID of a single transaction
API Secret | Authentication credential (see API credentials)

Domain format

# text
Instance:
demo-shop

Payment page:
https://demo-shop.pay.flowalp.com

API request:
https://api.pay.flowalp.com/v1.16/Gateway/?instance=demo-shop

General format:

# text
https://<instance>.pay.flowalp.com

Usage in the Merchant API

The instance parameter is required on requests and must be passed as a query parameter.

Base URL example:

# text
https://api.pay.flowalp.com/v1.16/:object/:id?instance=<instance>

Where:

Part | Description
`:object` | Resource (for example `Gateway`, `Transaction`, `Subscription`)
`:id` | Used for GET, PUT, and DELETE on a single entity
`instance` | Merchant instance name

For POST requests, all query parameters except instance must be in the body.

Example

# bash
curl --request GET \
  --url "https://api.pay.flowalp.com/v1.16/SignatureCheck/?instance=demo-shop" \
  --header "X-API-KEY: <api-secret>"

TODO FlowAlp: confirm whether SignatureCheck is the recommended smoke-test endpoint for credentials in the current version before publication.

Security

• Do not expose the instance together with the API Secret in the frontend.
• The instance alone does not authenticate: without an API Secret (or ApiSignature) requests fail.
• You may log the instance in application logs; never log the API Secret.

Next steps

• API credentials
• Authentication
• First API request