Register a service

Register a service in Management before calling APICenter. A service registration tells the gateway where to route requests and which scopes and shared-service dependencies are allowed.

Before you start

• Sign in with a Google account that has access to the target organization.
• Ask an APICenter administrator to provision your organization or membership if it is missing.
• Use an organization admin role to create tribes and projects. Service registration requires operator access or higher.
• Have the service's backend URL and health path ready. The URL must be reachable by the APICenter gateway.

Create the registry path

1. Open Registry.
2. Select New tribe, enter a lowercase ID and display name, then create it. Tribe IDs use lowercase letters, numbers, and hyphens.
3. Under the active tribe, select New project in followed by the tribe ID. Enter a lowercase project ID and name. Add a cost center if your organization uses one.
4. Confirm that the new project is active before registering a service.

The Registry view shows Tribe → Project → Service. Organization membership scopes the view even though the organization is not displayed in the tree. If you have memberships in multiple organizations, ask an administrator to create the tribe under the intended organization because the current form has no organization picker.

Register the service

1. From Registry, choose Register service.
2. Enter a lowercase service ID, a display name, version, and tier. The service ID is fixed after creation.
3. Set Type to tribe for a service owned by a project. The shared type is for platform-owned shared runtimes and has no project selection.
4. Add an environment row with its environment, backend URL, and health path. Use test for local development, staging, UAT, and demos. Use live for production. New registrations accept only test and live, matching SDK credentials.
5. For a tribe service, select an active project. The tribe is derived from the selected project. A service cannot move between projects after registration; create a new service entry if placement must change.
6. Add the exposed route patterns and at least one required scope. Select the shared services this service is allowed to call.
7. If any row uses live, complete Live registration approval with the approved request ID, your reason, and the exact phrase APPLY LIVE CHANGE. The approved request must authorize registering this service in live. A typed phrase does not replace approval. Use test while setting up your integration.
8. Register the service and open its detail page to review the manifest and status.

The gateway routes requests to the registered backend URL. Do not enter a URL that only the developer's laptop can reach unless APICenter is also running locally or the backend is exposed through an approved development tunnel.

Issue a service secret

From the service detail page, open Actions and the Service secret section. Select test and generate a secret. Use Provision secret to store its hash in APICenter's Google Secret Manager, then copy the plaintext value into the backend's secret manager. The plaintext is held in browser memory; the console does not retain it after you leave or reload the page. If you lose it, generate and provision a replacement.

Configure these server-only values in the service:

APICENTER_URL=https://api.apicenter.itsandbox.site
APICENTER_SERVICE_ID=<registered-service-id>
APICENTER_ENVIRONMENT=test
APICENTER_SERVICE_SECRET=<issued-service-secret>

The SDK exchanges the service credentials for a bearer token and refreshes it when needed. Follow SDK integration to make the first request.

For live writes, Management requires an admin role, the exact confirmation phrase APPLY LIVE CHANGE, and a reason. Review the action before confirming it. For onboarding assistance, use the Developer portal to preview and copy the packet for the tribe; it does not contain service credentials.