Honeycomb
Honeycomb is an observability platform for understanding complex distributed systems through high-cardinality, high-dimensional telemetry. Founded in 2016 by Charity Majors and Christine Yen and headquartered in San Francisco, it stores traces, logs and metrics as wide events and lets engineers query arbitrarily across every field at interactive speed, rather than pre-defining dashboards and thresholds. Honeycomb is OpenTelemetry-native: OTLP is the documented ingest path and the company has moved its own proprietary Beelines and distributions to End of Life in favour of upstream OpenTelemetry SDKs. The public REST API is described by a single OpenAPI 3.1 contract covering 89 operations across 22 resource groups - events, datasets, columns, calculated fields, queries, query data, boards, triggers, SLOs, burn alerts, markers, recipients, service maps, environments, API keys and anomaly detection signals - split across US and EU regions. Honeycomb also runs a first-party OAuth-protected Model Context Protocol server at mcp.honeycomb.io, publishes A2A and Agent Skills discovery documents from its docs host, and ships an official agent-skills plugin, making it one of the more complete agent-facing surfaces in the observability category. Products include the core observability platform, Refinery tail-based sampling, Telemetry Pipeline, and Canvas AI-assisted investigations.
Reference-quality API operations across every facet — a rich contract, published governance, transparent operations, and machine-readable commercial terms.
API Evangelist profiles Honeycomb the way a machine reads it — 102 machine-readable artifacts across 13 APIs, pulled from the provider's own public surface and indexed so a developer, an analyst, or an AI agent can evaluate it against every other provider on the network.
Every provider in the network is reduced to the same set of machine-readable artifacts — OpenAPI contracts, event specifications, GraphQL schemas, runnable collections, pricing and rate-limit signals, security posture, OAuth scopes, and the agent surfaces (MCP servers and skills) that let software drive the API on its own. We profile them because the interface is the part of a company you can actually inspect: it is a truer signal of what a provider does than any marketing page. From those artifacts we compute the Kin Score — Honeycomb scores 80.6/100 (exemplar), with a separate agent-readiness read of 42/100 (agent ready). The full breakdown is below, followed by every artifact we hold — each card links through to its machine-readable definition on apis.io.
Kin Score
This is the API Evangelist rating — a single, repeatable read computed from the artifacts on this page. Green fill is points earned; the red track is points possible, so every bar shows earned-versus-possible at a glance. Every facet and dimension name is a link: it opens that measurement's page on APIs.io, where the rating runs across the whole catalog — the exact checks that feed it, how every profiled provider distributes on it, and who is at the top of it.
Kin Score
How this is scored →scored 2026-09-08 · rubric v0.20.0
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How we profile Honeycomb
Each block below is one kind of artifact we hold for Honeycomb. For each we say what it is and why it earns a place in the profile, then list every one we've indexed — capped at two rows, scroll within the panel for the rest.
APIs 22
Each API is captured as its own OpenAPI definition — every operation, parameter, and response. This is the single most useful machine-readable description of what an API does, and it's what lets us score, lint, mock, and generate against it without asking the provider for anything.
Individual APIs this provider publishes, each with its own machine-readable definition.
Honeycomb Auth API
API Keys have various scopes permissions and belong to a specific Team or Environment. Any valid Honeycomb ingest or configuration API Key will work with this endpoint. Learn mo...
Honeycomb Boards API
Boards are a place to pin and save useful queries/graphs, SLO panels, text panels, and views you want to retain for later reuse and reference. Boards can contain multiple panel ...
Honeycomb Burn Alerts API
This feature is available as part of the [Honeycomb Pro and Enterprise plans](https://www.honeycomb.io/pricing/). Burn Alerts notify you when issues impact your SLO budget. Lear...
Honeycomb Calculated Fields API
Calculated Fields (also called Derived Columns) allow you to run queries based on the value of an expression that is calculated from the fields in an event. This API allows you ...
Honeycomb Columns API
Columns are fields in the events you send to Honeycomb. This API allows you to list, create, update, and delete columns in a dataset. ## Authorization The API key must have the ...
Honeycomb Dataset Definitions API
Dataset definitions describe the fields with special meaning in the Dataset. Refer to the [Dataset Definitions](https://docs.honeycomb.io/configure/datasets/definitions/) docume...
Honeycomb Datasets API
A Dataset represents a collection of related events that come from the same source, or are related to the same source. This API allows you to list, create, and update datasets. ...
Honeycomb Environments API
This API allows you to list, create, and update, and delete Environments. ## Authorization This API requires a Management Key passed via the HTTP Authorization header. Join the ...
Honeycomb Events API
The Events API endpoints are the lowest-level way to send Events to Honeycomb. **This should be your last resort!** If unsure where to start when instrumenting an application, r...
Honeycomb Key Management API
This API allows you to list, create, update, and delete API Keys for a Team. Learn more about [API keys here](https://docs.honeycomb.io/configure/environments/manage-api-keys/)....
Honeycomb Kinesis Events API
The Kinesis Events API endpoints allow Honeycomb to process streaming events from Amazon Kinesis. Refer to the [Honeycomb AWS integrations](https://docs.honeycomb.io/integration...
Honeycomb Marker Settings API
Marker Settings apply to groups of similar Markers. For example, "deploys" markers appear with the same color on a graph. This API allows you to list, create, update, and delete...
Honeycomb Markers API
Markers indicate points in time on graphs where interesting things happen, such as deploys or outages. This API allows you to list, create, update, and delete Markers. ## Author...
Honeycomb Queries API
Queries in Honeycomb are specifications for queries, and are used to identify queries in other parts of the API - in particular: boards, triggers, and query annotations. This AP...
Honeycomb Query Annotations API
Query Annotations in Honeycomb allow you to associate names and descriptions to queries to add additional information in collaboration features. This API allows you to list, cre...
Honeycomb Query Data API
This feature is available as part of the [Honeycomb Enterprise plan](https://www.honeycomb.io/pricing/). Query Results are the aggregated data from a Query, similar to what is d...
Honeycomb Recipients API
Honeycomb Recipients allow you to define and manage the Recipients that will get notified by a Trigger or Burn Alert. The types of Recipients supported are: PagerDuty, Email, We...
Honeycomb Reporting API
The Reporting API provides access to historical performance data. ## Authorization The API key must have the **Manage SLOs** permission. Learn more about [API keys here](https:/...
Honeycomb Service Maps API
The Service Maps API endpoints allow you to visualize the relationships between your services in Honeycomb. This API allows you to create and retrieve service Dependency Request...
Honeycomb SLOs API
This feature is available as part of the [Honeycomb Pro and Enterprise plans](https://www.honeycomb.io/pricing). Honeycomb SLOs allow you to define and monitor Service Level Obj...
Honeycomb Triggers API
Triggers let you receive notifications when your data in Honeycomb crosses the thresholds that you configure. The graph on which to alert is as flexible as a Honeycomb query, wh...
Honeycomb Anomaly Detection API
The Anomaly Detection API exposes Honeycomb Signals - the anomaly detection profiles Honeycomb maintains per service - and their historical anomalies. List and retrieve Signals,...
Scroll within the panel for all 22 ·
Postman Collections 21
A runnable collection turns the contract into something a developer can execute in seconds. We profile them because the fastest way to trust an API is to make a real call against it.
Ready-to-run Postman collections for exercising this provider's APIs.
Honeycomb Auth API
POSTMANHoneycomb Auth Boards API
POSTMANHoneycomb Auth Columns API
POSTMANHoneycomb Auth Datasets API
POSTMANHoneycomb Auth Events API
POSTMANHoneycomb Auth Markers API
POSTMANHoneycomb Auth Queries API
POSTMANHoneycomb Auth Reporting API
POSTMANHoneycomb Auth SLOs API
POSTMANHoneycomb Auth Triggers API
POSTMANScroll within the panel for all 21 ·
Open Collections 34
Open, tool-agnostic collections carry the same runnable value as Postman without locking you to one client — the portable, forkable form of the same exercise.
Open, tool-agnostic API collections (OpenAPI-derived and Bruno).
API Collection
OPEN COLLECTIONHoneycomb Auth API
OPEN COLLECTIONHoneycomb Boards API
OPEN COLLECTIONHoneycomb Columns API
OPEN COLLECTIONHoneycomb Datasets API
OPEN COLLECTIONHoneycomb Environments API
OPEN COLLECTIONHoneycomb Events API
OPEN COLLECTIONHoneycomb Auth API
OPEN COLLECTIONHoneycomb Auth Boards API
OPEN COLLECTIONHoneycomb Auth Burn Alerts API
OPEN COLLECTIONHoneycomb Auth Calculated Fields API
OPEN COLLECTIONHoneycomb Auth Columns API
OPEN COLLECTIONHoneycomb Auth Dataset Definitions API
OPEN COLLECTIONHoneycomb Auth Datasets API
OPEN COLLECTIONHoneycomb Auth Environments API
OPEN COLLECTIONHoneycomb Auth Events API
OPEN COLLECTIONHoneycomb Auth Key Management API
OPEN COLLECTIONHoneycomb Auth Kinesis Events API
OPEN COLLECTIONHoneycomb Auth Marker Settings API
OPEN COLLECTIONHoneycomb Auth Markers API
OPEN COLLECTIONHoneycomb Auth Queries API
OPEN COLLECTIONHoneycomb Auth Query Annotations API
OPEN COLLECTIONHoneycomb Auth Query Data API
OPEN COLLECTIONHoneycomb Auth Recipients API
OPEN COLLECTIONHoneycomb Auth Reporting API
OPEN COLLECTIONHoneycomb Auth Service Maps API
OPEN COLLECTIONHoneycomb Auth SLOs API
OPEN COLLECTIONHoneycomb Auth Triggers API
OPEN COLLECTIONHoneycomb Key Management API
OPEN COLLECTIONHoneycomb Markers API
OPEN COLLECTIONHoneycomb Queries API
OPEN COLLECTIONHoneycomb Service Maps API
OPEN COLLECTIONHoneycomb SLOs API
OPEN COLLECTIONHoneycomb Triggers API
OPEN COLLECTIONScroll within the panel for all 34 ·
MCP Servers 1
Model Context Protocol servers expose these APIs directly to AI agents. We profile them because agent-native access is the fastest-growing way this provider's capabilities actually get used.
Model Context Protocol servers that expose these APIs to AI agents.
Honeycomb MCP
Honeycomb operates a first-party hosted Model Context Protocol server at https://mcp.honeycomb.io/mcp (EU: https://mcp.eu1.honeycomb.io/mcp). It is OAuth-protected: an unauthent...
MCP SERVERPricing Plans 1
Pricing is part of the interface. Machine-readable plans tell you what a tier costs and includes before you commit — one of the things the Kin Score reads for access clarity — renamed from commercial clarity in rubric 0.12, because a free statutory interface has access terms and no commercial ones.
Published pricing tiers and plan structures.
Rate Limits 1
Rate limits are the difference between a demo that works and a production integration that doesn't fall over. Publishing them is an operational-transparency signal — and a hard requirement for any agent that plans its own throughput.
Documented rate limits and quota policies.
Honeycomb Io Rate Limits
RATE LIMITSFinOps 1
Cost, billing, and metering signals let a buyer model the financial operations of an API before it's live. We profile them for the same reason we profile pricing: the money is part of the contract.
Cost, billing, and metering signals for API financial operations.
Honeycomb Io Finops
FINOPSEvent Specifications 1
Not every API is request/response. AsyncAPI describes the event-driven and streaming side — the webhooks and channels — so the asynchronous half of the interface is documented the same way the synchronous half is.
AsyncAPI definitions for this provider's event-driven and streaming APIs.
Honeycomb Io Webhooks
ASYNCAPISemantic Vocabularies 1
JSON-LD contexts give the data shared meaning across APIs. We profile them because semantics are what let a machine reconcile 'customer' here with 'customer' somewhere else.
JSON-LD contexts and semantic vocabularies used across these APIs.
Honeycomb Io Context
JSON-LDSpectral Rules 2
Governance rulesets we run against this provider's specs — the automated checks behind parts of the score. Profiling them makes the quality bar explicit and re-runnable, not a matter of opinion.
Honeycomb API Rules
SPECTRALHoneycomb API Rules
SPECTRALJSON Schema 7
Standalone JSON Schema definitions describe the data models behind the API. We profile them so the shapes are validatable on their own — useful long after a single request is forgotten.
Standalone JSON Schema definitions for this provider's data models.
Honeycomb Board
JSON SCHEMAHoneycomb Column
JSON SCHEMAHoneycomb Dataset
JSON SCHEMAHoneycomb Marker
JSON SCHEMAHoneycomb Query
JSON SCHEMAHoneycomb Recipient
JSON SCHEMAHoneycomb SLO
JSON SCHEMAScroll within the panel for all 7 ·
JSON Structure 1
JSON Structure captures the data shapes in a form built for tooling — a complement to JSON Schema that keeps the model machine-legible.
JSON Structure definitions describing this provider's data shapes.
Honeycomb Event Structure
JSON STRUCTUREExamples 3
Real request and response payloads are what turn a spec from abstract into obvious — and they're one of the twelve things an agent needs to call an API correctly on the first try.
Example request and response payloads for these APIs.
Honeycomb Run Query Example
EXAMPLEHoneycomb Send Event Example
EXAMPLESecurity Posture 4
Authentication, domain security, vulnerability disclosure, and trust-center signals — the evidence that a provider takes security seriously enough to document it. We profile it because you can't govern what you can't see.
Authentication, domain security, vulnerability disclosure, and trust-center signals.
Honeycomb Io Trust Center
SOC 2, ISO 27001, ISO 27017, ISO 27018, HIPAA, FedRAMP, GDPR, CSA STAR
SECURITYScopes 1
OAuth scopes are the vocabulary of least-privilege access. Profiling them shows exactly what an integration — or an agent acting on a user's behalf — is allowed to do.
OAuth scopes governing access to this provider's APIs.
Agentic Access 1
An x-agentic-access contract marks which operations are safe for an agent to run on its own and which need a human in the loop. It is the difference between an API an agent can use and one it can use safely.
Recommended x-agentic-access execution contracts for AI agents.
Resources
Every other property we hold for Honeycomb — documentation, portals, status pages, policies, and corporate surface — grouped by the job it does, following the integrator's arc from getting started to running in production.
Get Started 6
Portal, sign-up, and the first successful call
Documentation 8
Reference material describing how the API behaves
Scroll within the panel for all 8 ·
Agent Surfaces 5
MCP servers, agent skills, and machine-readable catalogs
Design & Contract 6
Pagination, idempotency, versioning, errors, and events
Build 24
SDKs, sample code, and the tooling you integrate with
Scroll within the panel for all 24 ·
Access & Security 9
Authentication, authorization, and security posture
Scroll within the panel for all 9 ·
Operate 8
Status, limits, changes, and where to get help
Scroll within the panel for all 8 ·
Commercial 6
Pricing, plans, and the legal terms of use
Company 4
The organization behind the API
Other 3
Properties that don't map to a standard resource type
← All providers · Data indexed from github.com/api-evangelist/honeycomb-io · machine-readable index on apis.io
This is an independent, third-party profile of Honeycomb, published by API Evangelist. We do not operate, host, resell, or support these APIs, and we are not affiliated with or endorsed by the company unless stated above. Everything here is built from publicly available information — the company's own site, developer portal, documentation, public repositories, and the specifications it publishes for public use. Nothing is obtained by breaching a system, defeating an access control, or using credentials.
The Kin Score and Agent Readiness rating are independently calculated assessments of a company's public API artifacts, scored against a published rubric. They are not certifications, endorsements, security assessments, or audits.
Corrections, re-scores, and removal are free — no partnership or purchase required, and you do not need to justify the request. A removed company is recorded as unrated, never scored zero for having asked. Acknowledgement within one business day; removal within two.
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you will get a person, not a form — we will tell you exactly which public URLs this profile was built from.