Manage applications via public APIs

Automate application lifecycle management by creating, updating, and deleting applications programmatically via the Cortex Cloud public API endpoints.

The Cortex Cloud public API for applications enables programmatic management of the application inventory, creating, retrieving, updating, and deleting applications that group assets by business context. The application API automates workflows, enabling security teams to integrate application lifecycle management into CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure-as-code provisioning, and organizational onboarding automation.

Note

The application public API does not execute scans, enforce policies, or create issues. Scanning, policy enforcement, and issue creation are performed by their respective subsystems (Unified Application Security policies, scanner orchestration).

Core achievements

• Automated application provisioning: Creating applications programmatically eliminates manual console interaction and enables consistent, repeatable application definitions across environments
• Business context synchronization: Updating application metadata (owners, compliance, criticality) through the API ensures the Cortex Cloud inventory reflects current organizational structures without manual drift
• Posture visibility at scale: Retrieving application-level issue summaries and insights through the API enables integration with external dashboards, reporting tools, and executive briefing systems
• Inventory lifecycle management: Deleting deprecated applications through the API maintains inventory hygiene and prevents stale business context from distorting posture metrics

Manage Criteria via the public API

The Cortex Cloud Application Security public API for Criteria enables programmatic management of criteria; listing, retrieving, creating, and deleting criteria that define application grouping rules.

For more information refer to Manage Criteria via the public API.

Application lifecycle management operations

The following operations support the core creation, modification, and deletion of application entities in Cortex Cloud:

Operation	Method	Endpoint	Description
Create application	POST	/public_api/appsec/v1/application	Create a new application with a name, business criticality, asset selection criteria, and ownership metadata.
List applications	GET	/public_api/appsec/v1/application	Retrieve all applications with pagination support.
Get application by ID	GET	/public_api/appsec/v1/application/{applicationId}	Retrieve a specific application by the unique application identifier.
Update application	PUT	/public_api/appsec/v1/application/{applicationId}	Update the metadata of an existing application (business criticality, description, owners, compliance).
Delete application	DELETE	/public_api/appsec/v1/application/{id}	Delete an application by the unique application identifier.
Get configuration	GET	/public_api/appsec/v1/application/configuration	Retrieve the application settings configuration for the tenant.
Get issue summary	GET	/public_api/appsec/v1/application/{applicationId}/issues/{issueType}/summary	Retrieve the issue count summary by issue type for a specific application.
Get insights	GET	/public_api/appsec/v1/application/{applicationId}/insights/{issueCategory}/{itemType}	Retrieve insights data by issue category and item type for a specific application.

Operational considerations

When designing your automated workflows, keep the following API behaviors in mind:

• Updating asset boundaries: The API update operation (PUT) strictly modifies metadata. It does not support modifying the application's name or its asset selection criteria. To alter these fields, you must delete the existing application and create a new one
• Data retention on deletion: Deleting an application via the API (DELETE) only removes the business context grouping. The underlying assets (repositories, packages, IaC resources) and their detected security issues remain in your inventory, but are no longer associated with the deleted application

Application asset management operations

You can manage application assets through public API endpoints; discover assets available to add or remove, apply add or remove overrides, review override actions and their audit details, and revert override actions when needed.

Operation	Method	Endpoint	Description
List addable assets	GET	/assets/addable	Lists assets available to add, with filter shortcuts.
List removable assets	GET	/assets/removable	Lists assets available to remove.
Apply asset override	POST	/assets/override	Adds or removes assets using ADD or REMOVE actions and returns an actionId.
List override actions	GET	/assets/overrides	Lists override actions, including audit and origin details.
Revert override	DELETE	/assets/overrides/{actionId}	Reverts a previously applied override action.

Technical API Reference

For comprehensive technical details, including request body schemas, status codes, and JSON response examples, refer to the Applications API guide.