Finch Java API Library

The Finch Java SDK provides convenient access to the Finch REST API from applications written in Java.

The Finch Java SDK is similar to the Finch Kotlin SDK but with minor differences that make it more ergonomic for use in Java, such as Optional instead of nullable values, Stream instead of Sequence, and CompletableFuture instead of suspend functions.

It is generated with Stainless.

The REST API documentation can be found in the Finch Documentation Center.

Installation

Gradle

implementation("com.tryfinch.api:finch-java:4.2.0")

Maven

<dependency>
    <groupId>com.tryfinch.api</groupId>
    <artifactId>finch-java</artifactId>
    <version>4.2.0</version>
</dependency>

Requirements

This library requires Java 8 or later.

Usage

import com.tryfinch.api.client.FinchClient;
import com.tryfinch.api.client.okhttp.FinchOkHttpClient;
import com.tryfinch.api.models.HrisDirectoryListPage;
import com.tryfinch.api.models.HrisDirectoryListParams;

FinchClient client = FinchOkHttpClient.builder()
    // Configures using the `FINCH_CLIENT_ID`, `FINCH_CLIENT_SECRET` and `FINCH_WEBHOOK_SECRET` environment variables
    .fromEnv()
    .accessToken("My Access Token")
    .build();

HrisDirectoryListPage page = client.hris().directory().list();

Client configuration

Configure the client using environment variables:

import com.tryfinch.api.client.FinchClient;
import com.tryfinch.api.client.okhttp.FinchOkHttpClient;

FinchClient client = FinchOkHttpClient.builder()
    // Configures using the `FINCH_CLIENT_ID`, `FINCH_CLIENT_SECRET` and `FINCH_WEBHOOK_SECRET` environment variables
    .fromEnv()
    .accessToken("My Access Token")
    .build();

Or manually:

import com.tryfinch.api.client.FinchClient;
import com.tryfinch.api.client.okhttp.FinchOkHttpClient;

FinchClient client = FinchOkHttpClient.builder()
    .accessToken("My Access Token")
    .build();

Or using a combination of the two approaches:

import com.tryfinch.api.client.FinchClient;
import com.tryfinch.api.client.okhttp.FinchOkHttpClient;

FinchClient client = FinchOkHttpClient.builder()
    // Configures using the `FINCH_CLIENT_ID`, `FINCH_CLIENT_SECRET` and `FINCH_WEBHOOK_SECRET` environment variables
    .fromEnv()
    .accessToken("My Access Token")
    .build();

See this table for the available options:

Setter	Environment variable	Required	Default value
`clientId`	`FINCH_CLIENT_ID`	false	-
`clientSecret`	`FINCH_CLIENT_SECRET`	false	-
`webhookSecret`	`FINCH_WEBHOOK_SECRET`	false	-

Tip

Don't create more than one client in the same application. Each client has a connection pool and thread pools, which are more efficient to share between requests.

Requests and responses

To send a request to the Finch API, build an instance of some Params class and pass it to the corresponding client method. When the response is received, it will be deserialized into an instance of a Java class.

For example, client.hris().directory().list(...) should be called with an instance of HrisDirectoryListParams, and it will return an instance of HrisDirectoryListPage.

Immutability

Each class in the SDK has an associated builder or factory method for constructing it.

Each class is immutable once constructed. If the class has an associated builder, then it has a toBuilder() method, which can be used to convert it back to a builder for making a modified copy.

Because each class is immutable, builder modification will never affect already built class instances.

Asynchronous execution

The default client is synchronous. To switch to asynchronous execution, call the async() method:

import com.tryfinch.api.client.FinchClient;
import com.tryfinch.api.client.okhttp.FinchOkHttpClient;
import com.tryfinch.api.models.HrisDirectoryListPageAsync;
import com.tryfinch.api.models.HrisDirectoryListParams;
import java.util.concurrent.CompletableFuture;

FinchClient client = FinchOkHttpClient.builder()
    // Configures using the `FINCH_CLIENT_ID`, `FINCH_CLIENT_SECRET` and `FINCH_WEBHOOK_SECRET` environment variables
    .fromEnv()
    .accessToken("My Access Token")
    .build();

CompletableFuture<HrisDirectoryListPageAsync> page = client.async().hris().directory().list();

Or create an asynchronous client from the beginning:

import com.tryfinch.api.client.FinchClientAsync;
import com.tryfinch.api.client.okhttp.FinchOkHttpClientAsync;
import com.tryfinch.api.models.HrisDirectoryListPageAsync;
import com.tryfinch.api.models.HrisDirectoryListParams;
import java.util.concurrent.CompletableFuture;

FinchClientAsync client = FinchOkHttpClientAsync.builder()
    // Configures using the `FINCH_CLIENT_ID`, `FINCH_CLIENT_SECRET` and `FINCH_WEBHOOK_SECRET` environment variables
    .fromEnv()
    .accessToken("My Access Token")
    .build();

CompletableFuture<HrisDirectoryListPageAsync> page = client.hris().directory().list();

The asynchronous client supports the same options as the synchronous one, except most methods return CompletableFutures.

Error handling

The SDK throws custom unchecked exception types:

FinchServiceException: Base class for HTTP errors. See this table for which exception subclass is thrown for each HTTP status code:

Status	Exception
400	`BadRequestException`
401	`AuthenticationException`
403	`PermissionDeniedException`
404	`NotFoundException`
422	`UnprocessableEntityException`
429	`RateLimitException`
5xx	`InternalServerException`
others	`UnexpectedStatusCodeException`

FinchIoException: I/O networking errors.
FinchInvalidDataException: Failure to interpret successfully parsed data. For example, when accessing a property that's supposed to be required, but the API unexpectedly omitted it from the response.
FinchException: Base class for all exceptions. Most errors will result in one of the previously mentioned ones, but completely generic errors may be thrown using the base class.

Pagination

For methods that return a paginated list of results, this library provides convenient ways access the results either one page at a time, or item-by-item across all pages.

Auto-pagination

To iterate through all results across all pages, you can use autoPager, which automatically handles fetching more pages for you:

Synchronous

import com.tryfinch.api.models.HrisDirectoryListPage;
import com.tryfinch.api.models.IndividualInDirectory;

// As an Iterable:
HrisDirectoryListPage page = client.hris().directory().list(params);
for (IndividualInDirectory directory : page.autoPager()) {
    System.out.println(directory);
};

// As a Stream:
client.hris().directory().list(params).autoPager().stream()
    .limit(50)
    .forEach(directory -> System.out.println(directory));

Asynchronous

// Using forEach, which returns CompletableFuture<Void>:
asyncClient.hris().directory().list(params).autoPager()
    .forEach(directory -> System.out.println(directory), executor);

Manual pagination

If none of the above helpers meet your needs, you can also manually request pages one-by-one. A page of results has a data() method to fetch the list of objects, as well as top-level response and other methods to fetch top-level data about the page. It also has methods hasNextPage, getNextPage, and getNextPageParams methods to help with pagination.

import com.tryfinch.api.models.HrisDirectoryListPage;
import com.tryfinch.api.models.IndividualInDirectory;

HrisDirectoryListPage page = client.hris().directory().list(params);
while (page != null) {
    for (IndividualInDirectory directory : page.individuals()) {
        System.out.println(directory);
    }

    page = page.getNextPage().orElse(null);
}

Logging

The SDK uses the standard OkHttp logging interceptor.

Enable logging by setting the FINCH_LOG environment variable to info:

$ export FINCH_LOG=info

Or to debug for more verbose logging:

$ export FINCH_LOG=debug

Webhook Verification

We provide helper methods for verifying that a webhook request came from Finch, and not a malicious third party.

You can use finch.webhooks().verifySignature(body, headers, secret?) or finch.webhooks().unwrap(body, headers, secret?), both of which will raise an error if the signature is invalid.

Note that the "body" parameter must be the raw JSON string sent from the server (do not parse it first). The .unwrap() method can parse this JSON for you.

Network options

Retries

The SDK automatically retries 2 times by default, with a short exponential backoff.

Only the following error types are retried:

Connection errors (for example, due to a network connectivity problem)
408 Request Timeout
409 Conflict
429 Rate Limit
5xx Internal

The API may also explicitly instruct the SDK to retry or not retry a response.

To set a custom number of retries, configure the client using the maxRetries method:

import com.tryfinch.api.client.FinchClient;
import com.tryfinch.api.client.okhttp.FinchOkHttpClient;

FinchClient client = FinchOkHttpClient.builder()
    .fromEnv()
    .maxRetries(4)
    .accessToken("My Access Token")
    .build();

Timeouts

Requests time out after 1 minute by default.

To set a custom timeout, configure the method call using the timeout method:

import com.tryfinch.api.models.HrisDirectoryListPage;
import com.tryfinch.api.models.HrisDirectoryListParams;

HrisDirectoryListPage page = client.hris().directory().list(RequestOptions.builder().timeout(Duration.ofSeconds(30)).build());

Or configure the default for all method calls at the client level:

import com.tryfinch.api.client.FinchClient;
import com.tryfinch.api.client.okhttp.FinchOkHttpClient;
import java.time.Duration;

FinchClient client = FinchOkHttpClient.builder()
    .fromEnv()
    .timeout(Duration.ofSeconds(30))
    .accessToken("My Access Token")
    .build();

Proxies

To route requests through a proxy, configure the client using the proxy method:

import com.tryfinch.api.client.FinchClient;
import com.tryfinch.api.client.okhttp.FinchOkHttpClient;
import java.net.InetSocketAddress;
import java.net.Proxy;

FinchClient client = FinchOkHttpClient.builder()
    .fromEnv()
    .proxy(new Proxy(
      Proxy.Type.HTTP, new InetSocketAddress(
        "https://example.com", 8080
      )
    ))
    .accessToken("My Access Token")
    .build();

Undocumented API functionality

The SDK is typed for convenient usage of the documented API. However, it also supports working with undocumented or not yet supported parts of the API.

Parameters

To set undocumented parameters, call the putAdditionalHeader, putAdditionalQueryParam, or putAdditionalBodyProperty methods on any Params class:

import com.tryfinch.api.core.JsonValue;
import com.tryfinch.api.models.HrisDirectoryListParams;

HrisDirectoryListParams params = HrisDirectoryListParams.builder()
    .putAdditionalHeader("Secret-Header", "42")
    .putAdditionalQueryParam("secret_query_param", "42")
    .putAdditionalBodyProperty("secretProperty", JsonValue.from("42"))
    .build();

These can be accessed on the built object later using the _additionalHeaders(), _additionalQueryParams(), and _additionalBodyProperties() methods. You can also set undocumented parameters on nested headers, query params, or body classes using the putAdditionalProperty method. These properties can be accessed on the built object later using the _additionalProperties() method.

To set a documented parameter or property to an undocumented or not yet supported value, pass a JsonValue object to its setter:

import com.tryfinch.api.models.HrisDirectoryListParams;

HrisDirectoryListParams params = HrisDirectoryListParams.builder().build();

Response properties

To access undocumented response properties, call the _additionalProperties() method:

import com.tryfinch.api.core.JsonValue;
import java.util.Map;

Map<String, JsonValue> additionalProperties = client.accessTokens().create(params)._additionalProperties();
JsonValue secretPropertyValue = additionalProperties.get("secretProperty");

String result = secretPropertyValue.accept(new JsonValue.Visitor<>() {
    @Override
    public String visitNull() {
        return "It's null!";
    }

    @Override
    public String visitBoolean(boolean value) {
        return "It's a boolean!";
    }

    @Override
    public String visitNumber(Number value) {
        return "It's a number!";
    }

    // Other methods include `visitMissing`, `visitString`, `visitArray`, and `visitObject`
    // The default implementation of each unimplemented method delegates to `visitDefault`, which throws by default, but can also be overridden
});

To access a property's raw JSON value, which may be undocumented, call its _ prefixed method:

import com.tryfinch.api.core.JsonField;
import java.util.Optional;

JsonField<String> code = client.accessTokens().create(params)._code();

if (code.isMissing()) {
  // The property is absent from the JSON response
} else if (code.isNull()) {
  // The property was set to literal null
} else {
  // Check if value was provided as a string
  // Other methods include `asNumber()`, `asBoolean()`, etc.
  Optional<String> jsonString = code.asString();

  // Try to deserialize into a custom type
  MyClass myObject = code.asUnknown().orElseThrow().convert(MyClass.class);
}

Response validation

In rare cases, the API may return a response that doesn't match the expected type. For example, the SDK may expect a property to contain a String, but the API could return something else.

By default, the SDK will not throw an exception in this case. It will throw FinchInvalidDataException only if you directly access the property.

If you would prefer to check that the response is completely well-typed upfront, then either call validate():

import com.tryfinch.api.models.CreateAccessTokenResponse;

CreateAccessTokenResponse createAccessTokenResponse = client.accessTokens().create(params).validate();

Or configure the method call to validate the response using the responseValidation method:

import com.tryfinch.api.models.HrisDirectoryListPage;
import com.tryfinch.api.models.HrisDirectoryListParams;

HrisDirectoryListPage page = client.hris().directory().list(RequestOptions.builder().responseValidation(true).build());

Or configure the default for all method calls at the client level:

import com.tryfinch.api.client.FinchClient;
import com.tryfinch.api.client.okhttp.FinchOkHttpClient;

FinchClient client = FinchOkHttpClient.builder()
    .fromEnv()
    .responseValidation(true)
    .accessToken("My Access Token")
    .build();

FAQ

Why don't you use plain `enum` classes?

Java enum classes are not trivially forwards compatible. Using them in the SDK could cause runtime exceptions if the API is updated to respond with a new enum value.

Why do you represent fields using `JsonField<T>` instead of just plain `T`?

Using JsonField<T> enables a few features:

Allowing usage of undocumented API functionality
Lazily validating the API response against the expected shape
Representing absent vs explicitly null values

Why don't you use `data` classes?

It is not backwards compatible to add new fields to a data class and we don't want to introduce a breaking change every time we add a field to a class.

Why don't you use checked exceptions?

Checked exceptions are widely considered a mistake in the Java programming language. In fact, they were omitted from Kotlin for this reason.

Checked exceptions:

Are verbose to handle
Encourage error handling at the wrong level of abstraction, where nothing can be done about the error
Are tedious to propagate due to the function coloring problem
Don't play well with lambdas (also due to the function coloring problem)

Semantic versioning

This package generally follows SemVer conventions, though certain backwards-incompatible changes may be released as minor versions:

Changes to library internals which are technically public but not intended or documented for external use. (Please open a GitHub issue to let us know if you are relying on such internals.)
Changes that we do not expect to impact the vast majority of users in practice.

We take backwards-compatibility seriously and work hard to ensure you can rely on a smooth upgrade experience.

We are keen for your feedback; please open an issue with questions, bugs, or suggestions.

Finch-API/finch-api-java