Flexport SDK Patterns

Overview

Production-ready patterns for the Flexport REST API v2. Since Flexport has no official npm/pip SDK, you build typed HTTP clients. Key patterns: singleton client, paginated iteration, retry wrapper, and Zod response validation.

Instructions

Pattern 1: Singleton Client with Auto-Retry

// src/flexport/client.ts
import { z } from 'zod';

class FlexportClient {
  private static instance: FlexportClient | null = null;
  private base = 'https://api.flexport.com';
  private headers: Record<string, string>;

  private constructor(apiKey: string) {
    this.headers = {
      'Authorization': `Bearer ${apiKey}`,
      'Flexport-Version': '2',
      'Content-Type': 'application/json',
    };
  }

  static getInstance(): FlexportClient {
    if (!this.instance) {
      const key = process.env.FLEXPORT_API_KEY;
      if (!key) throw new Error('Missing FLEXPORT_API_KEY');
      this.instance = new FlexportClient(key);
    }
    return this.instance;
  }

  async request<T>(path: string, options: RequestInit = {}): Promise<T> {
    const res = await fetch(`${this.base}${path}`, { ...options, headers: { ...this.headers, ...options.headers } });
    if (res.status === 429) {
      const retryAfter = parseInt(res.headers.get('Retry-After') || '60');
      await new Promise(r => setTimeout(r, retryAfter * 1000));
      return this.request(path, options);  // Retry once
    }
    if (!res.ok) {
      const body = await res.text();
      throw new FlexportAPIError(res.status, body, path);
    }
    return res.json();
  }
}

class FlexportAPIError extends Error {
  constructor(public status: number, public body: string, public path: string) {
    super(`Flexport ${status} on ${path}: ${body}`);
    this.name = 'FlexportAPIError';
  }
}

Pattern 2: Paginated Iterator

// Iterate all pages of a Flexport list endpoint
async function* paginate<T>(path: string, perPage = 25): AsyncGenerator<T> {
  const client = FlexportClient.getInstance();
  let page = 1;
  while (true) {
    const separator = path.includes('?') ? '&' : '?';
    const res = await client.request<{ data: { records: T[]; total_count: number } }>(
      `${path}${separator}page=${page}&per=${perPage}`
    );
    for (const record of res.data.records) yield record;
    if (res.data.records.length < perPage) break;
    page++;
  }
}

// Usage: iterate all shipments
for await (const shipment of paginate<Shipment>('/shipments')) {
  console.log(shipment.id, shipment.status);
}

Pattern 3: Zod Response Validation

const ShipmentSchema = z.object({
  id: z.string(),
  status: z.enum(['booked', 'in_transit', 'arrived', 'delivered']),
  freight_type: z.enum(['ocean', 'air', 'trucking']),
  origin_port: z.object({ code: z.string(), name: z.string() }),
  destination_port: z.object({ code: z.string(), name: z.string() }),
  cargo_ready_date: z.string(),
  estimated_arrival_date: z.string().nullable(),
});

type Shipment = z.infer<typeof ShipmentSchema>;

async function getShipment(id: string): Promise<Shipment> {
  const client = FlexportClient.getInstance();
  const res = await client.request<{ data: unknown }>(`/shipments/${id}`);
  return ShipmentSchema.parse(res.data);  // Throws ZodError on mismatch
}

Pattern 4: Python Typed Client

import os, requests
from dataclasses import dataclass
from typing import Iterator

@dataclass
class Shipment:
    id: str
    status: str
    freight_type: str

class FlexportClient:
    BASE = 'https://api.flexport.com'

    def __init__(self):
        self.session = requests.Session()
        self.session.headers.update({
            'Authorization': f'Bearer {os.environ["FLEXPORT_API_KEY"]}',
            'Flexport-Version': '2',
        })

    def list_shipments(self, per: int = 25) -> Iterator[Shipment]:
        page = 1
        while True:
            r = self.session.get(f'{self.BASE}/shipments', params={'page': page, 'per': per})
            r.raise_for_status()
            records = r.json()['data']['records']
            for rec in records:
                yield Shipment(id=rec['id'], status=rec['status'], freight_type=rec['freight_type'])
            if len(records) < per:
                break
            page += 1

Error Handling

Pattern	Use Case	Benefit
Singleton	All API calls	One instance, consistent config
Paginator	List endpoints	No data loss from pagination
Zod validation	Response parsing	Catches API contract changes early
Error class	All failures	Structured error data for logging

Resources

• Flexport API Reference
• Zod Documentation

Next Steps

Apply patterns in

flexport-core-workflow-a

for real-world usage.