# 5. Create APIs

APIs are the most basic building blocks of any backend layer and allows external systems (frontend, clients, etc) to interact with your system to fetch, insert or modify data.

You can start by creating your first APIs by -

1. Visit the APIs page via **Application Layer -> APIs** from the Cosmocloud project's dashboard.
2. Click on **Create API** button. It will ask you which way to create the APIs.
   * **Using Templates:** API templates are a fast way to create the skeletons of your APIs and then later you can customise and tweak the logic.
   * **Building from Scratch:** This method allows you to create your APIs from scratch, allowing you to customise your **endpoint**, **request method**, and then starting to design the same from scratch.
3. For starting, you can select **Using Templates** to start building your first APIs.
4. Let's start using the **CRUD APIs** template for now.
   1. Select the template - CRUD APIs and click Next.
   2. On the second step, chose the Database Collection model you had created in [Step 4](/getting-started/2.-projects.md) and click Next.
   3. On the final step, Cosmocloud will suggest you which all APIs and corresponding models would be created for you.
   4. You can either select all, or select only the ones you would require -- **Don't forget to select / unselect the corresponding request body models as well.**
5. Click on **Create** to create all these APIs into the system and Voila! All of them are ready to use.

You can now try hitting these APIs with Postman or similar tools (like curl). Checkout the next step on how to hit and test the APIs.

{% hint style="info" %}
To customise and tweak the logic of these APIs, checkout [creating API flows](broken://pages/8z0rUKU7stKO2y2rf6fw).
{% endhint %}


---

# Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation

If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question.

Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter:

```
GET https://docs.cosmocloud.io/getting-started/5.-create-apis.md?ask=<question>
```

The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language.
The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation.

Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.