import { Guides } from '@/components/Guides'
import { Resources } from '@/components/Resources'
export const description =
'Learn everything there is to know about the NetBird Public API.'
# NetBird REST API
Use the NetBird Public API to manage users, peers, network rules and more from inside your application or scripts to automate the setup of your mesh network. {{ className: 'lead' }}
## Getting started {{ anchor: false }}
To get started, it is recommended to create a [service user](/manage/public-api#creating-a-service-user), that can later be used to communicate with the NetBird API.
To be able to send requests to our API you need to [authenticate](/api/guides/authentication) on each request. This can be done either by Bearer token from your identity provider or by creating a [personal access token](/api/guides/authentication#using-personal-access-tokens) in the NetBird dashboard.{{ className: 'lead' }}