# The Things Network / The Things Stack

> The Things Network is a free, community-operated global LoRaWAN network with over 280,000
> members and 21,000 gateways across 153 countries. It runs on The Things Stack, the open-source
> (Apache-2.0) LoRaWAN Network Server built by The Things Industries. The Things Stack v3
> implements the full LoRaWAN Network Reference Model — Identity Server, Application Server,
> Network Server, Gateway Server, Join Server, Device Repository, Packet Broker Agent — and
> exposes one contract in three projections: gRPC (the primary), HTTP REST (transcoded via
> grpc-gateway), and MQTT. The same software powers self-hosted deployments, the free community
> network (branded "The Things Stack Sandbox"), The Things Stack Cloud, and Enterprise.

Generated 2026-08-27 by the API Evangelist enrichment pipeline from this repository's harvested
artifacts. The Things Industries does not publish an llms.txt of its own — /llms.txt returns 404
on www.thethingsindustries.com and a soft-404 HTML shell on www.thethingsnetwork.org.

## Contract at a glance

- Primary contract: gRPC / Protocol Buffers 3, package `ttn.lorawan.v3`, port 8884
- HTTP REST base URL: https://eu1.cloud.thethings.network/api/v3 (also nam1, au1)
- Identity Server APIs are served ONLY from eu1 on the community network
- The Things Stack Cloud: https://<tenant-id>.<cluster>.cloud.thethings.industries/api/v3
- OAuth 2.0: https://eu1.cloud.thethings.network/oauth
- Current version: v3.36.2 (2026-08-17); API path version /api/v3 stable since 2019
- 329 REST operations across 58 refined OpenAPI documents
- License: Apache-2.0 — the whole server, contract and CLI are readable and forkable

## How to call it

- Auth: `Authorization: Bearer NNSXS.<token-id>.<token-secret>`
- Also supported: OAuth 2.0 authorization code, browser session cookies
- Permissions: a 70-value `Rights` enum, the same vocabulary for API keys and OAuth tokens
- Pagination: `limit` + `page` query params; `X-Total-Count` response header; past the last page
  the server returns `{}`
- Partial updates: there is no PATCH. Send PUT with `field_mask` naming exactly the fields being
  written. An update without a `field_mask` writes nothing and still succeeds.
- Errors: google.rpc.Status + `ttn.lorawan.v3.ErrorDetails`, NOT RFC 9457. Match on
  `details[].namespace` + `details[].name` (e.g. `pkg/auth/rights` / `no_user_rights`).
- Rate limits: `X-Rate-Limit-Limit`, `-Available`, `-Reset`, `-Retry`; HTTP 429 / gRPC
  ResourceExhausted on exhaustion
- Deprecation signal: the `X-Warning` response header (not RFC 8594 Sunset/Deprecation)
- Idempotency: NOT SUPPORTED. No idempotency-key header exists. `AppAs_DownlinkQueuePush` is the
  dangerous non-idempotent write — prefer `AppAs_DownlinkQueueReplace` when a retry is possible.

## Reversibility

- Applications, gateways, users, organizations and OAuth clients are soft-deleted and restorable
  for **24 hours** on The Things Stack Cloud (configurable on Enterprise). Past that the server
  returns `error:pkg/identityserver:restore_window_expired`.
- **End devices cannot be restored.** A delete is permanent.
- Purge is permanent and releases the entity ID for reuse.
- A queued downlink can be discarded by replacing the queue with an empty list; once transmitted
  it is on the air and cannot be recalled.

## Documentation

- [Documentation home](https://www.thethingsindustries.com/docs/)
- [API concepts](https://www.thethingsindustries.com/docs/api/concepts/)
- [Authentication](https://www.thethingsindustries.com/docs/api/concepts/auth/)
- [Pagination](https://www.thethingsindustries.com/docs/api/concepts/pagination/)
- [Errors](https://www.thethingsindustries.com/docs/api/concepts/errors/)
- [HTTP (REST) reference](https://www.thethingsindustries.com/docs/api/reference/http/)
- [gRPC reference](https://www.thethingsindustries.com/docs/api/reference/grpc/)
- [Rate limiting](https://www.thethingsindustries.com/docs/enterprise/management/rate-limiting/)
- [Deleting, restoring and purging entities](https://www.thethingsindustries.com/docs/concepts/advanced/purge/)
- [Cluster addresses](https://www.thethingsindustries.com/docs/concepts/ttn/addresses/)
- [Command-line interface](https://www.thethingsindustries.com/docs/ttn-lw-cli/)
- [Integrations](https://www.thethingsindustries.com/docs/integrations/)
- [Webhooks](https://www.thethingsindustries.com/docs/integrations/webhooks/)
- [MQTT](https://www.thethingsindustries.com/docs/integrations/other-integrations/mqtt/)
- [Storage Integration](https://www.thethingsindustries.com/docs/integrations/storage/)
- [Events](https://www.thethingsindustries.com/docs/concepts/features/events/)
- [What's new](https://www.thethingsindustries.com/docs/whats-new/)

## Source and distribution

- [lorawan-stack (Apache-2.0)](https://github.com/TheThingsNetwork/lorawan-stack)
- [Protobuf contract](https://github.com/TheThingsNetwork/lorawan-stack/tree/v3.36.2/api/ttn/lorawan/v3)
- [Releases / changelog](https://github.com/TheThingsNetwork/lorawan-stack/releases)
- [Go module](https://pkg.go.dev/go.thethings.network/lorawan-stack/v3) — v3.36.2
- [Homebrew tap](https://github.com/TheThingsNetwork/homebrew-lorawan-stack) — ttn-lw-cli 3.36.2
- [Snap](https://snapcraft.io/ttn-lw-stack) — 3.36.2
- [LoRaWAN device repository](https://github.com/TheThingsNetwork/lorawan-devices)
- [Frequency plans](https://github.com/TheThingsNetwork/lorawan-frequency-plans)
- [Webhook templates](https://github.com/TheThingsNetwork/lorawan-webhook-templates)

## Event surface

Webhooks (HTTP POST, JSON, unsigned), MQTT, Pub/Sub bridges (NATS/MQTT), a live gRPC event
stream, and the Storage Integration for backfill. MQTT topics:
`v3/{application id}@{tenant id}/devices/{device id}/{join|up|down/queued|down/sent|down/ack|down/nack|down/failed|service/data|location/solved}`.
Publish to `.../down/push` and `.../down/replace`.

## Standards

- LoRa Alliance LoRaWAN L2 TS001 1.0 through 1.0.4 and 1.1 — an enumerated required field on
  every end device (`lorawan_version`)
- LoRa Alliance Regional Parameters TS002/RP002 — `lorawan_phy_version`
- LoRaWAN Backend Interfaces (Join Server / Interop Server)
- Semtech BasicStation LNS + CUPS, and the legacy UDP packet forwarder
- OAuth 2.0 authorization code
- gRPC / Protobuf 3, google.api.http transcoding, MQTT 3.1.1

Not supported: RFC 9457 problem+json, RFC 8414 OAuth metadata, OpenID Connect discovery, RFC 9116
security.txt, RFC 8594 Sunset headers, idempotency keys, GraphQL, SOAP/WSDL.

## Agent surfaces

- MCP server: NONE published. No hosted endpoint, no stdio package.
- A2A agent card: NONE. /.well-known/agent-card.json and /.well-known/agent.json miss on every
  host (soft-404 HTML on the two SPA hosts, real 404 on the API host).
- /.well-known/: nothing is served on any host.
- Agent skills in this repository are generated by API Evangelist, not published by the provider.

## Support and community

- [Community forum](https://www.thethingsnetwork.org/forum/)
- [Local communities](https://www.thethingsnetwork.org/community)
- [Support](https://www.thethingsindustries.com/support/)
- [Status](https://status.thethings.industries/)
- [Responsible disclosure](https://www.thethingsnetwork.org/responsible-disclosure)

## Commercial

- [Plans](https://www.thethingsindustries.com/stack/plans/) — Sandbox (free, fair-use, no SLA),
  Cloud Discovery (free, 10 devices / 10 gateways), Cloud, Cloud Plus, Enterprise
- [Console signup](https://console.cloud.thethings.network)
- [EULA](https://www.thethingsindustries.com/document/eula/)
- [Privacy policy](https://www.thethingsindustries.com/document/privacypolicy/)