Typorithm · medium

Automation & APIs

automation-apisosintautomationapirate-limit

Saved on this device

Full lesson · 8 learning steps Open any exercise for focused practice

Step 1 of 8 · intro card

Learn Automation & APIs

Frameworks & Automation

Investigators script collection against APIs (Shodan, Censys, breach services) and aggregate with tools like theHarvester, then dedupe and store the results. Automation scales an investigation, but it must respect each API's terms of service, rate limits, and the law.

Automation scales an investigation. theHarvester queries many sources for a domain in one run, pulling emails, subdomains, and hosts that you would otherwise gather one site at a time.

Beyond aggregation, investigators script directly against APIs — Shodan and Censys for internet-exposed hosts and certificates, breach services for exposed credentials. Output flows through a pipeline: collect, deduplicate, then store for analysis.

Scaling comes with obligations. Every API has rate limits and terms of service, and all of this must stay within the law. Respecting those limits keeps collection both ethical and reliable.

theHarvester aggregates many sources for one domain.

Shodan and Censys expose queryable APIs.

Pipeline: collect -> dedupe -> store, within limits.

theHarvester -d example.com -b all
# Shodan API + Censys API queries
# scripted collect -> dedupe -> store
# respect rate limits + terms of service

Read the implementation

Connect each part of the code to the concept before you type.

1. Aggregate collection

theHarvester gathers emails, hosts, and names for a domain from many sources at once.

theHarvester -d example.com -b all

2. Query APIs

Shodan and Censys expose APIs for querying internet-exposed hosts and certificates.

# Shodan API + Censys API queries

3. Collection pipeline

Scripts collect from sources, deduplicate the results, then store them for analysis.

# scripted collect -> dedupe -> store

4. Stay within limits

Automation must respect each API's rate limits, terms of service, and the law.

# respect rate limits + terms of service

A complete learning loop

Understand

Read the concept map and follow the code breakdown.

Reconstruct

Type the implementation, repair mistakes and work through every recall exercise.

Verify

Use the final check without hints; revisit weak concepts in short practice sessions.