Airtel Africa API
Agent-ready OpenAPI document · curated by JenticPaymentsPayment ProcessingapiKey2 EndpointsREST
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For Agents
Initiate Airtel Money payments and check payment status across Airtel Africa's mobile money markets.
Use for: I want to initiate an Airtel Money payment for a customer, Check the status of a mobile money payment by ID, Verify whether a payment to an Airtel Money wallet succeeded, Create a new mobile money charge for an order in Kenya
Not supported: Does not handle card payments, FX conversion, KYC verification, or telecom airtime top-ups - use for Airtel Money payment creation and status lookup only.
Jentic publishes the only available OpenAPI specification for Airtel Africa API, keeping it validated and agent-ready. Airtel Africa runs mobile money and telecom services across more than a dozen sub-Saharan markets. The two documented endpoints accept a payment from a mobile money customer and return the current status of a previously created payment. Authentication uses an API key passed in the X-API-Key header.
Install Jentic One Beta
Connect the Airtel Africa API to your agent
Jentic One is a self-hosted execution layer for AI agents. It lets your agent call the Airtel Africa API, or any other public or private API you need. You set the rules, the agent never sees your credentials, and every call is logged.
Two steps, two machines. Install the instance in a safe environment, then register your agent from wherever it runs.
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Step 1: Jentic One Host machine
# On the machine that will host your Jentic One instance:
curl -fsSL "https://jentic.com/install.sh?src=apis&api=%2Fapis%2Fairtel.africa%2Fairtel-africa" | sh2
Step 2: Agent machine
# On the machine where your agent runs (keep this separate from the instance):
curl -fsSL "https://jentic.com/install.sh?src=apis&api=%2Fapis%2Fairtel.africa%2Fairtel-africa" | sh
jentic register # connects your agent to your Jentic One instanceJentic One is in public beta. The setup above keeps your agent separate from the instance, which is what you want before using real credentials: an agent running as the same OS user as Jentic One can read its stored keys directly. Just evaluating? A single local install is fine to start. See the secure deployment guide for the tiers.
Capabilities
What an agent can do with Airtel Africa API.
Create a mobile money payment request via POST /payments
Look up the current status of a previously initiated payment via GET /payments/{id}
Support payment flows across Airtel Africa's mobile money operating countries
Receive status transitions such as pending, successful, or failed for a created payment
Use Cases
Patterns agents use Airtel Africa API for, with concrete tasks.
★ Mobile Money Checkout
Accept payment from an Airtel Money wallet during checkout by issuing POST /payments with the amount, currency, and customer's mobile number. Airtel returns a payment ID; poll GET /payments/{id} or wait for an out-of-band callback to confirm the payment cleared. Works across Airtel Africa's operating countries that support mobile money.
Create a payment for KES 1500 to mobile number 254700000000 and return the payment ID
Payment Status Reconciliation
Reconcile orders against Airtel Money payments by polling GET /payments/{id} until the status reaches a terminal state (successful or failed). Useful for back-office reconciliation, customer support tools that need to confirm payment receipt, and order-fulfilment systems that gate shipping on payment success.
Look up payment ID 'pmt-abc-123' and return its current status and last updated timestamp
Agent-Initiated Mobile Money Charge via Jentic
An agent processes a mobile money charge by searching Jentic for the create-payment operation, loading the schema, and executing under the X-API-Key header managed by Jentic. The agent never sees the raw API key. Status checks are likewise exposed through Jentic for closing the loop.
Search Jentic for 'create an airtel money payment', load the operation, and execute it with amount, currency, and customer mobile number
Key Endpoints
2 endpoints — jentic publishes the only available openapi specification for airtel africa api, keeping it validated and agent-ready.
METHOD
PATH
DESCRIPTION
POST
/payments
Create an Airtel Money payment
GET
/payments/{id}
Get the status of a payment
POST
/payments
Create an Airtel Money payment
GET
/payments/{id}
Get the status of a payment
Why Jentic?
What agents get from Jentic-routed access to this vendor.
Setup
Wiring Airtel Africa by hand means constructing its X-API-Key header, building payment payloads, and writing your own retry logic for money movement. Through Jentic you install once, import Airtel Africa from the API Directory, store the key once, and your agent calls it.
Permission scoping
Airtel Africa creates a payment from a request body and reads it back at /payments/{id}, so scope your agent by operation: limit it to the operations it needs, such as creating a payment and checking its status, and leave out either if the agent does not need it.
Credential isolation
Your Airtel Africa API key is stored once, encrypted, by your own Jentic One instance and injected at execution time. It never enters the agent's prompt, logs, or context.
Intent-based discovery
Agents search Jentic by intent such as 'create an airtel money payment' or 'check payment status', and Jentic returns the matching operation with its body and path schema so the agent calls the right endpoint without browsing the reference docs.
Related APIs
Alternatives and complements available in the Jentic catalogue.
FAQs
Specific to using Airtel Africa API through Jentic.
Why is there no official OpenAPI spec for Airtel Africa API?
Airtel Africa does not publish a public OpenAPI specification. Jentic generates and maintains this spec so that AI agents and developers can call Airtel Africa API via structured tooling. It is validated against the live API and kept up to date. Get started with Jentic One, the self-hosted execution layer.
What authentication does the Airtel Africa API use?
Airtel Africa uses an API key passed in the X-API-Key header on every request. Through Jentic the key is stored encrypted and the header is injected at execution time so the raw key never enters the agent context.
Can I create an Airtel Money payment with this API?
Yes. POST /payments accepts amount, currency, and the customer's mobile number and returns a payment ID. The payment then transitions through pending into a terminal status retrievable via GET /payments/{id}.
What are the rate limits for the Airtel Africa API?
Airtel Africa applies per-key throttling that varies by partner agreement; the developer portal at developers.airtel.africa is authoritative. Treat HTTP 429 as a backoff-and-retry signal and avoid bursty checkout patterns.
How do I check a payment's status through Jentic?
Install with pip install jentic, search for 'check airtel money payment status', load the GET /payments/{id} operation, and execute with the payment id. Jentic injects the X-API-Key header automatically.
Which countries does the Airtel Africa API cover?
Airtel Money operates across 14+ sub-Saharan African markets including Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Nigeria, Zambia, Malawi, and Rwanda. Coverage and currency support depend on the partner agreement and per-country regulatory rules.
Can I limit what my agent is allowed to do with the Airtel Africa API?
Yes. Because you run Jentic One yourself, your own rules decide which Airtel Africa operations your agent can call and which credentials it can use. The API exposes just two operations, creating a payment with POST /payments and checking its status with GET /payments/{id}, so you can restrict the agent to only the ones it needs. For example, you can allow status lookups while withholding payment creation, or the reverse, depending on the task.
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