Buttondown Email Buttondown API
Browse all Buttondown Email APIsAgent-ready OpenAPI document · curated by JenticMarketingEmail MarketingapiKey10 EndpointsREST
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For Agents
Manage Buttondown newsletters with a tight subscriber and email surface. Authenticate with a Token in the Authorization header.
Use for: I want to add a subscriber to my Buttondown list, Retrieve a subscriber record by ID, Update an existing subscriber with new metadata, List the most recent emails sent from my newsletter
Not supported: Does not handle transactional email, SMS, or marketing automation journeys - use for newsletter subscriber and email lifecycle management only.
Jentic publishes the only available OpenAPI specification for Buttondown API, keeping it validated and agent-ready. Buttondown is a minimalist newsletter platform popular with writers and indie publishers. This curated spec exposes the core subscriber and email lifecycle - list, create, retrieve, update, and delete - for lightweight integrations. The companion buttondown-api spec covers the full surface when more resources are required.
Install Jentic One Beta
Connect the Buttondown API to your agent
Jentic One is a self-hosted execution layer for AI agents. It lets your agent call the Buttondown 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.
1
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%2Fbuttondown.email%2Fbuttondown-buttondown" | 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%2Fbuttondown.email%2Fbuttondown-buttondown" | 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 Buttondown API.
Add new subscribers to a Buttondown newsletter
Look up an individual subscriber by ID
Update subscriber metadata such as tags or status
Remove subscribers from the audience
Draft newsletter emails programmatically
Update or delete email drafts before they send
Use Cases
Patterns agents use Buttondown API for, with concrete tasks.
★ Subscriber Lifecycle Sync
Mirror subscriber state between Buttondown and an external source of truth - a CRM, a billing system, or a community platform. Operators run hourly or daily syncs to keep the audience aligned and clean. POST and PATCH on /subscribers handle creation and updates respectively.
For each user marked active in the CRM, POST to /subscribers if missing, PATCH if metadata changed, and DELETE if the user has churned
Newsletter Draft Pipeline
Build automated draft pipelines that compose newsletter content from blog posts, AI summaries, or analytics digests, then create the email in Buttondown for human review. Editors approve in the Buttondown UI before sending. Saves 20-30 minutes of manual drafting per issue.
Pull the top three articles by traffic from analytics, summarise them, and POST to /emails as a draft titled 'Weekly Digest'
Audience Cleanup
Remove inactive or hard-bounced subscribers in bulk to keep deliverability strong. The DELETE method on /subscribers/{id} supports targeted cleanups, and PATCH lets an agent flag subscribers without removing them. A typical cleanup run completes in seconds for a small list.
List subscribers, identify those with no opens in 90 days, and PATCH them to a 'lapsed' tag for a re-engagement send
AI Agent Newsletter Operations
Through Jentic, an AI agent can drive Buttondown newsletter operations using natural language intent. The agent searches for the right operation, loads the schema, and executes - no doc-scraping required. Useful for assistants that publish on a writer's behalf.
Search Jentic for 'add a buttondown subscriber', load the schema for POST /subscribers, and execute with email and metadata fields
Key Endpoints
10 endpoints — jentic publishes the only available openapi specification for buttondown api, keeping it validated and agent-ready.
METHOD
PATH
DESCRIPTION
GET
/subscribers
List subscribers
POST
/subscribers
Create a subscriber
GET
/subscribers/{id}
Retrieve a subscriber
PATCH
/subscribers/{id}
Update a subscriber
DELETE
/subscribers/{id}
Delete a subscriber
GET
/emails
List emails
POST
/emails
Create an email draft
GET
/subscribers
List subscribers
POST
/subscribers
Create a subscriber
GET
/subscribers/{id}
Retrieve a subscriber
PATCH
/subscribers/{id}
Update a subscriber
DELETE
/subscribers/{id}
Delete a subscriber
GET
/emails
List emails
POST
/emails
Create an email draft
Why Jentic?
What agents get from Jentic-routed access to this vendor.
Setup
Wiring this curated Buttondown slice by hand still means learning its token scheme, remembering the 'Token YOUR_API_KEY' prefix on the Authorization header, and writing your own backoff for the undocumented 429s. Through Jentic you install once, import the Buttondown API from the API Directory, store the token once, and your agent calls it.
Permission scoping
Buttondown puts the subscriber or email id in the URL path (/subscribers/{id}, /emails/{id}), so you can pin your agent to specific records rather than the whole list. You choose the operations it may call, so destructive ones like deleting a subscriber or deleting an email draft are not included unless you add them.
Credential isolation
Your Buttondown token 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 'add a buttondown subscriber' or 'create a buttondown email draft', and Jentic returns the matching operation with its input 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 Buttondown API through Jentic.
Why is there no official OpenAPI spec for Buttondown API?
Buttondown does not publish an OpenAPI specification. Jentic generates and maintains this spec so that AI agents and developers can call Buttondown 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 Buttondown API use?
Buttondown uses a token-based API key passed in the Authorization header in the format 'Token YOUR_API_KEY'. Through Jentic, the key is stored in the encrypted vault and never enters the agent's context.
Can I update an existing subscriber with the Buttondown API?
Yes. PATCH /subscribers/{id} updates the subscriber identified by the path parameter. Use this to change tags, metadata, or status without removing and recreating the record.
What are the rate limits for the Buttondown API?
Buttondown does not publish hard rate limits in the spec. For batch jobs, watch for 429 responses and back off rather than continuing tight retry loops.
How do I create an email draft through Jentic?
Run pip install jentic, then search Jentic with the query 'create a buttondown email draft', load the schema for POST /emails, and execute with subject and body fields.
How does this spec differ from the buttondown-api spec?
Both target the same base URL and authentication scheme. This spec covers 10 endpoints around the subscriber and email lifecycle; the buttondown-api spec covers 118 endpoints including automations, exports, attachments, and newsletter metadata.
Can I limit what my agent is allowed to do with the Buttondown API?
Yes. Because you run Jentic One yourself, you decide which Buttondown operations your agent can call, so you can grant read-only access like GET /subscribers and GET /emails while excluding destructive ones such as DELETE /subscribers/{id} or DELETE /emails/{id} unless you add them. Since Buttondown puts the subscriber or email id in the URL path, you can also pin the agent to specific records rather than the whole audience. Your API token is held by your own instance and injected only at execution time, so it stays out of the agent's prompt and logs.
GET STARTED