Integration Checks Reference

We run your integration through a set of automated checks to ensure it’s working property and giving our users the best possible experience. To help better address a check in communication, each check is given a unique ID, consisting of a capital letter and three digits, such as D001.

You don’t need to know the implication of the initial capitial letter. But if you’re curious, they are:

Area Description
Compatibility Only apply when your integration is public, these checks verify how the new version is backward compatible with the currently public version. They ask questions like “would this change break existing Zaps, Zap Templates, or connected accounts?”
Definition Definition of the integration, including auth and trigger/search/action configurations. Some of these checks could block you from saving/pushing if the violation results in a broken trigger/search/action.
Marketing Public-facing information, such as the app title, description, and logo. The intent of these rules is to give Zapier users a consistent style among texts and images across all public integrations. They’re more likely to block you from going public.
Connected Accounts Connected accounts that are linked to your integration. We verify these to ensure the authentication is working.
Stats Usage stats, such as the number of users your integration has. These are more likely to block you from going public.
T - Zap History Data in your Zap History, produced by live Zaps. These are more likely to block you from going public. The “T” checks are named as such for historical reasons. Zapier now shows tasks in the Zap History.
User Things in the developer’s (your) account, such as Terms of Service acceptance.
Lifecycle The lifecyle state of your integration or its versions, such as the visibility (private, pending, or public) and the version state (deprecated, non-production, or production).
Zap Things related to Zaps, such as the trigger samples you pulled into the Zap editor.

When the checks are run, we’ll give a brief blurb summarizing the violation (with a check ID) along with a link to this page. This will act as a full reference explaining each error and giving examples for each.

A001 - A Connected Account Exists

To ensure you’ve tested auth, we require you to set up at least one connected account.

C001 - Try To Avoid Hiding/Removing Public Triggers/Searches/Creates

During promotion, we compare features of your currently public version with your soon-to-be-public version.

When you hide/remove a trigger in a new version, Zap Templates that use that trigger become invalid. Try to avoid this when you can. The same applies for searches and creates.

C002 - Try To Avoid Removing Input Fields

During promotion, we compare features of your currently public version with your soon-to-be-public version.

When you change/remove the key property of an input_field, Zap Templates that use that field become invalid. Try to avoid this when you can.

C003 - Try To Avoid Removing Sample Data

During promotion, we compare features of your currently public version with your soon-to-be-public version.

When you change/remove the key property of an item in your sample, Zap Templates that use that field become invalid. Try to avoid this when you can.

D001 - Asks for API Key in Action Instead of in Auth

Some integrations incorrectly have api_key or similar as an an action field in an action instead of centrally used in auth. This is worse because action fields typically aren’t treated with the same level of security as auth fields are (e.g. scrubbed from logs) and aren’t action specific. Additionally, the ability to test the validity of auth doesn’t exist for action fields, so anything auth related should be put into an auth field instead.

D002 - Provide Link in Help Text for Auth Fields

It’s often not obvious where a user can find their API credentials for a service. If you use a pasted API key as an authentication method, it’s strongly encouraged that you link the user to the page (or relevant help doc) that has their key.

✘ an example of an incorrect implementation:

API key is found on the "API Details" page in settings

✔ an example of a correct implementation:

Go to the [API Details](https://my.site.com/manage/api-details) screen from your
Website Dashboard to find your API Key.

D003 - Connection Label Should Be Set

Connection Labels help customers understand and remember which account they connected for a given Connected Account. These should be short and something easily identifiable.

For both Platform UI and CLI, the connection label is a string. You can use any data returned by your test function.

For instance, if a successful run of the auth test returns the following json:

{
  "name": "Malcom Reynolds",
  "email": "youcanttaketheskyfromme@serenity.com",
  "job": "Captain"
}

Your connection label could be the following:

"{{name}} - {{email}}"

The most important part of the label is that it uniquely identifies the auth it’s labeling.

✘ an example of an incorrect connection label:

"Slack"

✔ an example of a correct connection label:

"{{user}} @ {{team}}"

D004 - ID Fields Should Have Dynamic Dropdowns

We’ve found that instead of instructing users to paste an item id into Zapier, providing them with a dynamic dropdown greatly increases the likelihood of the user setting up Zaps correctly. Users will still be able to map custom fields, but this gets them started on the right foot.

Read more about implementing dynamic dropdowns below:

  • Platform UI: https://platform.zapier.com/docs/input-designer#dropdown
  • Platform CLI: https://platform.zapier.com/cli_docs/docs#dynamic-dropdowns

D005 - Dynamic Dropdown Connects to a Non-Existing Trigger

Dynamic dropdowns allow you to connect an input field to an existing trigger. The dropdown won’t work if the trigger key you specify doesn’t exist.

D006 - REST Hook Trigger Needs a Polling URL

When users are setting up a hook-based (aka instant) Trigger, it’s important to have a polling fallback. For example, imagine a Zap that triggers on a new Slack message. If testing relies on the sending of a webhook, the test won’t complete without the user sending an actual message in a Slack channel, which is disruptive.

Instead, during testing, the Perform List (performList) operation fetches a (real) recent message using the provided URL for polling and uses it as the test result. The polling URL is only used for tests.

It’s very important that the structure of an object from a webhook and from a poll are identical. Typically, this means modifying a poll result so that it looks like a hook. If a poll has fields that a hook doesn’t, the user may map them to a later step and when the zap is run for real, the value will be blank.

Let’s walk through an example. Say we have a New Contact REST Hook trigger. When a new contact is created, Zapier gets a webhook that looks like this:

{
  "id": 1,
  "firstName": "Bruce",
  "lastName": "Wayne",
  "job": "Batman"
}

The accompanying polling URL would look something like https://site.com/contacts/list and return:

{
  "results": [
    {
      "id": 1,
      "firstName": "Bruce",
      "lastName": "Wayne",
      "job": "Batman",
      "friends": [2, 3, 4]
    },
    {
      "id": 2,
      "firstName": "Alfred",
      "lastName": "Pennyworth",
      "job": "Butler",
      "friends": [1, 3]
    }
  ]
}

To match the polling result to the hook result, you would modify this response to remove the friends information, and return only the array of contacts, not the enclosing object.

The polling result is not used when a user skips testing the Zap step. In that case, Zapier uses the sample data, so the sample data must also match the hook data format.

See Sample Data in the FAQ for more details on this.

D007 - All URLs Should Be HTTPS

When handling customer data (which all Zapier functions do), it’s strongly encouraged that all communication take place securely. Using SSL is a big part of that, so ensure your URLs have HTTPS as their protocol.

If you need help setting up an SSL certificate for your API, we suggest Let’s Encrypt.

✘ an example of an incorrect setup:

http://example.com/messages/subscribe

✔ an example of a correct implementation:

https://example.com/messages/subscribe

D008 - Invalid Markdown Link

A valid markdown link consists of a pair of square brackets with the link text paired with a pair of parens that have the link itself. See the markdown cheatsheet for more info.

If you want to show a full link without actually linking to it, use backticks. This makes it clear to the user that they don’t need to click the link, it’s just used as an example. Any link used in plain text needs to either be a proper link or in backticks.

✘ examples of an incorrect implementation:

See [Google(https://google.com)

See https://google.com

✔ examples of a correct implementation:

See [Google](https://google.com)

See `https://google.com`

If you see this error, you should look through both the description for the trigger/action/search and the help text for any fields that might have bad links.

D009 - Requires at Least One Search Field

When making a search step, it’s important to have a field to search on! Common examples for searching for a user are by name, email, and username.

D010 - Missing “ID” Field in Static Sample Data

For polling triggers, the deduper uses the id field to decide if it’s seen an object before. It can be any sort of string, but it’s important that it’s unique. If your object is returned with a differently named id field (such as contact_id), write code to rename it. Hooks are not deduped, so they’re not required to have an id.

This check is similiar to T002. But unlike T002, this one validates the static samples in your integration definition instead of the live polling results in the Zap History.

✘ an example of an incorrect implementation:

{
  "contact_id": 4,
  "contact_name": "David"
}

✔ an example of a correct implementation:

{
  "id": 4,
  "contact_name": "David"
}

D011 - Redundant Help Text

Help text is optional and meant to provide non-obvious information or links for the user. If the label and help text are the same, they are considered redundant.

✘ an example of an incorrect implementation:

{
  "label": "Subdomain",
  "help_text": "subdomain"
}

✔ an example of a correct implementation:

{
  "label": "Subdomain",
  "help_text": "Where you (and your users) can access your forms, e.g., https://<SUBDOMAIN>.typeform.com"
}

D012 - Static Sample Is Required

When a user sets up a trigger, they need sample data to be returned in order to have fields available to map in the subsequent steps. If testing the trigger returns no live results, we use static sample data as a fallback.

It’s very important that the structure of an object from the actual trigger and in the sample data are identical. Otherwise, users could map fields that don’t exist in the live results, which results in a broken Zap.

See Sample Data in the FAQ for more details on this.

D013 - Connects to a Non-Existing Search

Search-Powered Fields prompt users to set up a search step to populate the value of the field. It won’t work if the search key you specify doesn’t exist.

D014 - Has a Search Connector, but No Dynamic Dropdown

By design, to get the “Add a Search Step” button, an action needs both a search connector and a (valid) dynamic dropdown. If you can’t provide a valid dropdown, you can instead point to a dummy trigger that always returns an empty array.

✘ an example of an incorrect setup:

{
  "key": "update_thing",
  "search": "thing.id"
}

✔ an example of a correct implementation:

{
  "key": "update_thing",
  "search": "thing.id",
  "dynamic": "things.id.name"
}

D015 - Search-Or-Create Connects to a Non-Existing Action/Search

The search or create key you specify in searchOrCreates must reference to an existing search or action. Otherwise, it won’t work.

D016 - Consists Only a Static Webhook

Static Webhooks, while convenient to build, leave a lot to be desired from our side. For this reason, Zapier doesn’t allow integration that are a single static hook. To fix this, add more triggers/searches/actions.

D017 - Static Hook Is Discouraged

When a REST Hook trigger is missing a Subscribe or Unsubscribe endpoint, it is presented to users as a Static Webhook. As static webhooks are complicated to set up correctly, we no longer support adding new static webhook triggers to a public integration. Please set up Subscribe and Unsubscribe requests for this trigger, or use a Polling trigger type instead.

D018 - Titlecased Label

In order to have a consistent style across trigger/action/search labels, they’re required to be presented in title case. If you fail this check, a passing version of your label will be shown.

✘ an example of an incorrect implementation:

new contact

✔ an example of a correct implementation:

New Contact

D019 - Too Few Important Triggers/Searches/Actions

In order to highlight your most popular steps and give the user a clear recommendation of what to use Zapier for, we encourage the use of “important” steps. Important steps are shown first in the UI, while non-important steps are shown after a “show more” click.

These can be adjusted in the settings for each individual step, either via a checkbox (Platform UI) or via the important property (Platform CLI).

D020 - Too Many Important Triggers/Searches/Actions

In order to highlight your most popular steps and give the user a clear recommendation of what to use Zapier for, we encourage a limited number of “important” steps. These are shown first in the UI and aren’t behind a “show more” click.

These can be adjusted in the settings for each individual step, either via a checkbox (Platform UI) or via the important property (Platform CLI).

D021 - Trigger Description Requirements

Trigger descriptions must start with Triggers when and end with a ..

✘ examples of an incorrect implementation:

Whenever there's a new contact, this goes?

Triggers whenever there's a new contact.

✔ examples of a correct implementation:

Triggers when there's a new contact.

D022 - Creates Should Try to Have Static Input Fields

When making Zap Templates, it’s helpful to have input fields that are common for all users. Without any, it’s hard to create templates. If possible, add some static input fields that all users will be able to use.

D023 - ISO-8601 Date/Time Format in Static Sample

To ensure Zapier can correctly parse dates and times, you should always use ISO-8601 format to represent dates or times. Timezone info should also be present if it contains time.

Unlike T003, this check validates the fields in static samples instead of live Zap runs in the Zap History.

✘ examples of an incorrect implementation:

01 Aug 2019

01 Aug 2019 06:50:30

2019-08-01T06:50:30

✔ examples of a correct implementation:

2019-08-01

2019-08-01T06:50:30-0500

2019-09-15T09:59:59Z

D024 - Static Sample Respects Output Field Definition

If you define output fields for a trigger/action/search, they should be consistent with the static sample data. The specific checks are:

  • “required” fields must be in the sample
  • field values in the sample match their field type

✘ an example of an incorrect implementation:

static sample: {"id": "1"}
output fields: [
    {"key":  "id", "type": "integer"},
    {"key": "email", "type": "string", "required": true}
]

✔ an example of a correct implementation:

static sample: {"id": 1, "email": "john@example.com"}
output fields: [
    {"key":  "id", "type": "integer"},
    {"key": "email", "type": "string", "required": true}
]

L001 - Version Is Deprecated

You can’t promote a deprecated version.

L002 - Version Was Already Submitted

You can’t submit a version you’ve already submitted. If your integration was pushed back and you want to resubmit for another review, you should make changes on a new version and submit that.

L003 - Version Is Already Production

This could happen if you’re promoting a version that is already production.

M001 - App Category Is Required

To correctly categorize your integration on Zapier, please choose the category that fits best your app. You can specify a category for your integration in the Integration Settings page.

M002 - Description Is Invalid

Your app’s description is a place to talk about your app, not ours! Even if we really like your service, you’re not allowed to say “Zapier” in your app’s description.

Additionally, it’s discouraged that you talk about how this integration will sync anything, as the space is supposed to be about your service itself instead of the Zapier integration in particular.

Lastly, this section should be short and sweet. A brief description (roughly tweet-sized) is best. Specifically, we’re looking for 1 - 3 sentences or at least 40 characters.

✘ an example of an incorrect setup:

Google Translate enables Zapier users to translate text from one language into
another.

✔ an example of a correct implementation:

Google Translate is a service that translates text from one language into another.

M003 - Role Must Be Employee or Contractor

For your integration to go public, you must be employed or hired by the company who makes the app for the integration to go public. Go to Integration Settings page to select your role.

Your app’s logo will be used all over the site in square containers and in various sizes. To ensure it looks good at all sizes, the logo image must be:

  • a square PNG image
  • at least 256px by 256px in size
  • in RGBA mode so it can have a transparent background

To resize an image or convert an image to PNG, you can use this tool.

M005 - Developer Email Domain Matches App Domain

To ensure that this integration is being submitted by the app owner we require that one of the developers listed on the project have an email address with the same domain as your app’s homepage URL (which must also be present). You can add the homepage URL at https://zapier.com/app/developer/app/APP_ID/version/APP_VERSION/settings.

M006 - Homepage URL Must Be Present

Each app must have a homepage URL. You can add the homepage URL at https://zapier.com/app/developer/app/APP_ID/version/APP_VERSION/settings.

M007 - Public Integration Already Exists

We only allow one public integration in our app directory for a given app. If a public integration with the same title already exists, we probably won’t approve your submission to go public. If you’re the owner of the existing public integration, you may want to create a version and promote that instead of submitting a new integration.

S001 - 3 Users with a live Zap

To verify user demand, there should be at least 3 users who have a live Zap using this integration. “Live” means the Zaps are switched on with at least one successful Zap run in recent history.

S002 - One Live Zap for Each Trigger/Search/Action

To ensure any show-stopping bugs are worked out, every visible trigger/search/action of your integration should have a live Zap that demonstrates it works.

S003 - Live Version Count Limit

You can’t have more than 5 previous or current production versions with live Zaps. To continue, migrate users on older versions to a newer version.

T001 - One Successful Zap for Each Trigger/Search/Action

There must be at least one successful Zap run for each visible trigger/action/search in your app.

To ensure you have run a live test of every visible trigger/action/search, create a Zap for each one, turn it on, and trigger a Zap run while it’s on. This check is performed using the Zap History for accounts belonging to the integration admins, so build your test Zaps in these accounts.

Learn more about the Zap History here.

T002 - Missing “ID” Field in Live Polling Results

For polling triggers, the deduper uses the id field to decide if it’s seen an object before. It can be any sort of string, but it’s important that it’s unique. If your object is returned with a differently named id field (such as contact_id), write code to rename it.

This check is similiar to D010. But unlike D010, this one validates the live polling results in the Zap History instead of the static samples in your integration definition.

✘ an example of an incorrect implementation:

{
  "contact_id": 4,
  "contact_name": "David"
}

✔ an example of a correct implementation:

{
  "id": 4,
  "contact_name": "David"
}

T003 - ISO-8601 Date/Time Format in Zap History

To ensure Zapier can correctly parse dates and times, you should always use ISO-8601 format to represent dates or times. Timezone info should also be present if it contains time.

Unlike D023, this check validates the data in the Zap History instead of static samples.

✘ examples of an incorrect implementation:

01 Aug 2019

01 Aug 2019 06:50:30

2019-08-01T06:50:30

✔ examples of a correct implementation:

2019-08-01

2019-08-01T06:50:30-0500

2019-09-15T09:59:59Z

T004 - Static Sample Contains a Subset of Keys from Live Result

Static samples provide Zapier users and partners a way to preview and map the fields without actually making a request to your API. For a better UX, it’s important that static samples truthfully reflect the live results pulled from your API, which users can see in their Zap History.

This check requires the static sample you define for each trigger/action/search to contain a subset of the keys in the latest run in your Zap History for that trigger/action/search.

✘ an example of an incorrect implementation:

static: {"id": 1, "email": "john@example.com"}
live: {"id": 2, "name": "Alice"}

See Sample Data in the FAQ for more details on this.

✔ an example of a correct implementation:

static: {"id": 1, "name": "John"}
live: {"id": 2, "name": "Alice", "email": "alice@example.com"}

T005 - Live Trigger Result Respects Output Field Definition

This check takes the latest run from the Zap History and verifies whether the trigger result conforms to the output fields if you define them for your integration. The specific checks are:

  • “required” fields must be in the trigger result
  • field values in the trigger result match their field type

✘ an example of an incorrect implementation:

live result: {"id": "1"}
output fields: [
    {"key":  "id", "type": "integer"},
    {"key": "email", "type": "string", "required": true}
]

✔ an example of a correct implementation:

live result: {"id": 1, "email": "john@example.com"}
output fields: [
    {"key":  "id", "type": "integer"},
    {"key": "email", "type": "string", "required": true}
]

See Sample Data in the FAQ for more details on this.

T006 - Polling Sample Contains a Subset of Keys from Live Result

For hook triggers, we require you to provide a Perform List URL so that users can pull a live sample in the Zap editor. This is called a Polling Sample, and is created when you test the trigger in a Zap before turning it on.

Errors occur when a Zap uses a field from the Polling Sample that ends up not being provided by the actual hook payload once the Zap is running. To ensure this doesn’t happen, this check compares the latest item in your Zap History with the selected Polling Sample in the corresponding Zap. For it to pass, the selected Polling Sample must contain a subset of the keys returned in the latest live result in the Zap History.

✘ an example of an incorrect implementation:

polling sample: {"id": 1, "email": "john@example.com"}
live: {"id": 2, "name": "Alice"}

✔ an example of a correct implementation:

polling sample: {"id": 1, "name": "John"}
live: {"id": 2, "name": "Alice", "email": "alice@example.com"}

See Sample Data in the FAQ for more details on this.

U001 - Developer Terms of Service

You must agree to the latest Developer Terms of Service in order to proceed. Go to Developer Home to agree.

Z001 - Polling Sample Respects Output Field Definition

For hook triggers, we require you to provide a Perform List URL so that users can pull a live sample in the Zap editor. This is called a Polling Sample.

This check takes the latest polling sample from one of the integration admins’ Zaps and verifies if the sample conforms to the output fields if you defined them for your integration. The specific checks are:

  • “required” fields must be in the polling sample
  • field values in the trigger result match their field type

✘ an example of an incorrect implementation:

polling sample: {"id": "1"}
output fields: [
    {"key":  "id", "type": "integer"},
    {"key": "email", "type": "string", "required": true}
]

✔ an example of a correct implementation:

polling sample: {"id": 1, "email": "john@example.com"}
output fields: [
    {"key":  "id", "type": "integer"},
    {"key": "email", "type": "string", "required": true}
]

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