VSTS Extension Documents Through REST API

Question

I've been creating an extension for VSTS, and so far i have stored some data in documents in collections (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/vsts/extend/develop/data-storage).

The problem I have now, is that I need to GET these documents somehow from an external application. I have looked into: https://github.com/Microsoft/vsts-auth-samples/tree/master/ClientLibraryConsoleAppSample to get the authorization done, but then I am unable to get the documents. If I try to access through the REST API I have issues authorizing myself(without the personal access token provided. The application is supposed to work for every user, and i cannot get and use every user's personal access token. This is not feasible for 350+ people) as well as I am unable to get the REST API working. The documentation on all of this is severely lacking. Anyone able to help?

Answer 1

The documentation is lacking, because the Data Storage is isolated for the extension and there is no easy way to access the data from outside of the extension. If you need external access, you also need to store your data externally. Azure storage or in a TFVC/Git repo under the VSTS account.

As for per-user storage access, that's also isolated and would indeed require either a account owner token or a user specific Oauth or PAT token.

Answer 2

I have found the solution. The documentation states that there are 2 ways of working with the documents/collections. REST API and their VSS wrappers. The url required to get all documents in a certain collection is as follows:

https://{account}.extmgmt.visualstudio.com/_apis/ExtensionManagement/InstalledExtensions/{publisherName}/{extensionName}/Data/Scopes/Default/Current/Collections/{collectionName}/Documents/{documentName}.

Using this in a browser works just fine. All that needs to be done in order to use this with an external application is authorization.

Answer 3

If you use sdk methods from docs like VSS.getService(VSS.ServiceIds.ExtensionData) you can view (easiest in dev tool in browser) the request. Its look like:

https://extmgmt.dev.azure.com/{organization}/_apis/ExtensionManagement/InstalledExtensions/{publisher id}/{extension id}/Data/Scopes/Default/Current/Collections/{collections (by default 'MyCollection')}/Documents