# App Platform Reference

App Platform is a fully managed Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) that deploys applications from Git repositories or container images. It automatically builds, deploys, and scales components while handling all underlying infrastructure.

## The DigitalOcean API

The [DigitalOcean API](https://docs.digitalocean.com/reference/index.html.md) lets you manage resources programmatically with standard HTTP requests. All actions available in the control panel are also available through the API.

The endpoint for the App Platform API is `https://api.digitalocean.com/v2/apps`; [the API documentation](https://developers.digitalocean.com/documentation/v2/) has details on how to send native HTTP requests that are properly formed to make API calls.

Alternatively, you can use an [API wrapper](https://developers.digitalocean.com/libraries/) for your desired programming language to integrate access to the API in your application’s codebase. This makes calls to the DigitalOcean API similar to calling functions from locally-installed libraries that your code is importing. You still need to create an API token with [the control panel’s token generator](https://cloud.digitalocean.com/account/api/tokens/new) and reference the token string in your code.

[DigitalOcean API Reference for App Platform](https://docs.digitalocean.com/reference/api/reference/apps): Most App Platform API operations are centered around a few core object types which are defined here.

## The DigitalOcean Command Line Client, doctl

[`doctl`](https://github.com/digitalocean/doctl) is the command-line interface for the DigitalOcean API. It supports most of the same actions available in the API and DigitalOcean Control Panel.

The commands for App Platform are inside the `apps` command space.

To create or update an app, you can pass in a YAML or JSON app specification to the create command, as in `doctl apps create --spec <path-to-spec>`.

[doctl apps](https://docs.digitalocean.com/reference/doctl/reference/apps/index.html.md): The subcommands of `doctl app` manage your App Platform apps. For documentation on app specs, see the [app spec reference](https://www.digitalocean.com/docs/app-platform/concepts/app-spec).

## DigitalOcean MCP Servers

The [DigitalOcean Model Context Protocol (MCP) server](https://docs.digitalocean.com/reference/mcp/index.html.md) lets you use natural language prompts to interact with App Platform to create, update, deploy, and manage apps. All operations use argument-based input, and no resource URIs are used. You can create apps from a repo, update configuration and environment variables, redeploy, list and inspect apps and deployments, and check resource usage.

[DigitalOcean MCP Servers](https://docs.digitalocean.com/reference/mcp/index.html.md): Use the DigitalOcean MCP server to manage your App Platform apps.

## Additional References

[App Platform Buildpack References](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/app-platform/reference/buildpacks/index.html.md): Reference information for supported buildpacks on App Platform.

[App Platform Dockerfile Build Reference](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/app-platform/reference/dockerfile/index.html.md): Reference for using Dockerfiles to build App Platform apps.

[Reference for Dev Config YAML](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/app-platform/reference/dev-config/index.html.md): Reference for the format of dev-config.yaml, a file that configures local App Platform builds using doctl

[Reference for App Specification](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/app-platform/reference/app-spec/index.html.md): Reference for the format of app configuration files for App Platform, also known as app specs.

[App Platform Error Code Reference](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/app-platform/reference/error-codes/index.html.md): Reference for error codes and their reasons in App Platform.

[App Platform API Reference](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/app-platform/reference/api/index.html.md)