I’m working with an Airtable database and I need to add new fields through code instead of doing it manually. In regular databases like MySQL you can do something like this:
ALTER TABLE Users
ADD UserCode varchar(50) NOT NULL DEFAULT 'USER001'
Does Airtable have any API endpoints that let me create new columns automatically? I want to build these fields dynamically based on user input in my application.
Yes, Airtable’s REST API lets you create fields programmatically. Use the POST /v0/{baseId}/{tableIdOrName}/fields endpoint with the field name and type in the request body. For a single line text field, send {"name": "UserCode", "type": "singleLineText"}. You’ll need authentication with a personal access token or API key. I’ve used this in several projects and it works reliably. Just know there are some limitations compared to creating fields manually - not all field types and configurations are supported. The API docs cover all the supported field types and their parameters pretty well.