Actors

In various places in the Attio API, you will see the concept of an "actor". An actor is something that performs actions inside Attio. A workspace member is the prime example of an actor, but you will also encounter integrations and automations from the Attio system as actors.

Types of Actors

An Actor is made up of two things: a type and an ID. The current list of actors types and their corresponding ID format is as follows:

• workspace-member - A human user who is signed into a workspace. Comes with a unique UUID. You can get further information about the workspace member, e.g. name, avatar and email address, using the list workspace members endpoints.
• api-token - An integration using the developer API. Comes with a unique UUID for the token.
• system - An internal part of the Attio system. For example, communications intelligence updates are registered with system actors. Always comes with a null ID.

Actors are recorded in various parts of the system. Every attribute value write, for example, includes the actor who wrote it, e.g:

"created_by_actor": {  
  "type": "workspace-member",  
  "id": "175bec0c-f06a-4c45-9962-7a7a6be28b8a"  
}

Actors are often encountered via the "actor reference" attribute type. Every standard object includes a created_by attribute of this type. For more information, please see the actor reference documentation.