Getting started with Dev Harness

Dev Harness is a set of developer tools that make it easy to integrate Userorbit into your development workflow. With Dev Harness, you can use tools like Claude Code, Cursor, or other AI-powered development environments to read, create, and manage Userorbit resources directly from your terminal or editor. This tutorial walks you through setting up and using Dev Harness.

What is Dev Harness?

Dev Harness provides a developer-friendly interface to the Userorbit API, optimized for use with AI coding assistants and command-line workflows. Instead of manually crafting API requests, you can let your development tools interact with Userorbit on your behalf — creating help center articles, drafting announcements, managing feedback, and more, all from within your coding environment.

Step 1: Get your credentials

You need two pieces of information to connect Dev Harness:

API Key — Go to Settings > API Keys in your Userorbit workspace and create a key with Read and Write permissions. Name it something like "Dev Harness."
Team ID — Find your team ID in Settings > General.

Store both values as environment variables on your development machine:

export USERORBIT_API_KEY="your_api_key_here"
export USERORBIT_TEAM_ID="your_team_id_here"

Add these to your shell profile (.bashrc, .zshrc, or equivalent) so they persist across sessions.

Step 2: Understand the API structure

The Userorbit API uses a consistent pattern that makes it easy to work with from developer tools:

Base URL: https://api.userorbit.com/api/v1
Method: All endpoints use POST.
Headers: Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY and x-team-id: YOUR_TEAM_ID
Body: JSON payloads with the parameters for each operation.

Common endpoints you will use with Dev Harness:

articles.list / articles.create / articles.update — Manage help center articles.
announcements.list / announcements.create — Manage announcements.
feedback.list — Read feedback submissions.
collections.list — List help center collections.

Step 3: Use with Claude Code

Claude Code can interact with the Userorbit API directly using curl commands. Here is how to set it up:

Make sure your environment variables (USERORBIT_API_KEY and USERORBIT_TEAM_ID) are set in the shell where Claude Code runs.
Ask Claude Code to perform Userorbit operations — for example, "Create a help center article about password resets" or "List all feedback tagged as bug reports."
Claude Code will use the API to execute the request and return the results.

This workflow is particularly powerful for bulk operations. You can ask Claude Code to create multiple articles at once, update a batch of announcements, or analyze feedback patterns — tasks that would be tedious to do manually in the dashboard.

Step 4: Use with other AI editors

Any AI-powered editor or terminal tool that can execute shell commands can work with Dev Harness. The pattern is the same:

Set the environment variables.
Provide the tool with the API structure (base URL, headers, endpoints).
Let the tool construct and execute API calls on your behalf.

You can include Userorbit API documentation in your project's context files so your AI tools always have the reference they need.

Step 5: Test your setup

Verify everything works with a simple test command in your terminal:

curl -s -X POST "https://api.userorbit.com/api/v1/collections.list" -H "Authorization: Bearer $USERORBIT_API_KEY" -H "Content-Type: application/json" -H "x-team-id: $USERORBIT_TEAM_ID" -d '{}'

If the response returns a list of your help center collections, your setup is working correctly.

Tips for productive use

Start with read operations to explore your existing data before making changes.
Use draft status for articles and announcements created through Dev Harness so you can review them in the dashboard before publishing.
Keep a reference of common API endpoints in your project's documentation for quick access.
Use environment-specific API keys — one for development, another for production — to avoid accidental changes to live data.

Help Center