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Chift sits between your software and your customers’ financial tools. Whichever way you use it, the same three objects show up — learn them once here.

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The three objects

Everything in Chift is built from three objects, and how they relate is the part worth getting straight up front:
A consumer holds connections, each linking to one connector

A consumer can hold several connections — but only one per connector.

  • Connector — software Chift talks to (Odoo, Sage, Shopify, Lightspeed). Chift builds and maintains these; you choose which to activate. In your product, an integration you offer.
  • Consumer — one of your customers, identified by a uuid (consumerid). In your product, a tenant or account in your database — usually one per customer.
  • Connection — one consumer linked to one connector, holding that customer’s credentials and configuration. “This customer connected their Odoo.”
Chift’s API paths and fields use the word integration (GET /integrations, integrationid) for historical reasons. In the documentation we say connector. They mean the same thing.

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Two ways to use Chift

Both start from the same connectors, consumers, and connections. What differs is who writes the integration logic and who triggers it.

Unified API

You build the integration and you have the lead. You call Chift’s endpoints directly and read or write your customers’ data whenever your product needs to.

Syncs

Chift builds the integration and triggers the flows. We set up the synchronisation with you and run it on an event or a schedule — no integration code on your side.
Most developers start with the Unified API. Syncs suit teams who would rather delegate the build and the running of the flow to Chift.

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Next steps

Authenticate

Exchange your API key for a bearer token — needed for both models.

Glossary

Short definitions of every Chift term.