Usage concepts

The ApifyClient interface follows a generic pattern that is applicable to all of its components. By calling individual methods of ApifyClient, specific clients which target individual API resources are created. There are two types of those clients. A client for management of a single resource and a client for a collection of resources.

const { ApifyClient } = require('apify-client');
const apifyClient = new ApifyClient({ token: 'my-token' });

// Collection clients do not require a parameter.
const actorCollectionClient = apifyClient.actors();
// Creates an actor with the name: my-actor.
const myActor = await actorCollectionClient.create({ name: 'my-actor' });
// Lists all of your actors.
const { items } = await actorCollectionClient.list();

// Collection clients do not require a parameter.
const datasetCollectionClient = apifyClient.datasets();
// Gets (or creates, if it doesn't exist) a dataset with the name of my-dataset.
const myDataset = await datasetCollectionClient.getOrCreate('my-dataset');

// Resource clients accept an ID of the resource.
const actorClient = apifyClient.actor('john-doe/my-actor');
// Fetches the john-doe/my-actor object from the API.
const myActor = await actorClient.get();
// Starts the run of john-doe/my-actor and returns the Run object.
const myActorRun = await actorClient.start();

// Resource clients accept an ID of the resource.
const datasetClient = apifyClient.dataset('john-doe/my-dataset');
// Appends items to the end of john-doe/my-dataset.
await datasetClient.pushItems([{ foo: 1 }, { bar: 2 }]);

The ID of the resource can be either the id of the said resource, or a combination of your username/resource-name.

This is really all you need to remember, because all resource clients follow the pattern you see above.

Nested clients

Sometimes clients return other clients. That's to simplify working with nested collections, such as runs of a given actor.

const actorClient = apifyClient.actor('john-doe/hello-world');
const runsClient = actorClient.runs();
// Lists the last 10 runs of the john-doe/hello-world actor.
const { items } = await runsClient.list({
    limit: 10,
    desc: true
})

// Selects the last run of the john-doe/hello-world actor that finished
// with a SUCCEEDED status.
const lastSucceededRunClient = actorClient.lastRun({ status: 'SUCCEEDED' });
// Fetches items from the run's dataset.
const { items } = await lastSucceededRunClient.dataset()
    .listItems();

The quick access to dataset and other storages directly from the run client can now only be used with the lastRun() method, but the feature will be available to all runs in the future.

Pagination

Most methods named list or listSomething return a Promise<PaginatedList>. There are some exceptions though, like listKeys or listHead which paginate differently. The results you're looking for are always stored under items and you can use the limit property to get only a subset of results. Other props are also available, depending on the method.