Use the import endpoints when you have contact data outside LinkedIn or Instagram exports — for example a vCard (.vcf) export from another app, or contacts you build programmatically.

The flow is always parse → preview → commit. Parsing validates and normalizes rows; committing writes selected contacts to the account.

Prerequisites

A full-access API key or a user session token
Contacts shaped like the API import schemas (vCard is the simplest starting point)

vCard import

Parse the file

POST /api/contacts/import/vcard/parse

Send the vCard file as multipart/form-data (field name per the OpenAPI spec). The response lists parsed contacts with validation metadata so you can preview before writing anything.

curl -X POST "https://api.usebondery.com/api/contacts/import/vcard/parse" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer bondery_key_<keyId>_<secret>" \
  -F "file=@contacts.vcf"

Review the preview

Check each contact in the response. Drop invalid rows or duplicates before commit. The webapp import UI follows the same parse/commit pattern.

Commit selected contacts

POST /api/contacts/import/vcard/commit

Send the contacts you want to import in the request body. Each commit accepts up to 25 contacts per request — batch larger imports in chunks.

curl -X POST "https://api.usebondery.com/api/contacts/import/vcard/commit" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer bondery_key_<keyId>_<secret>" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"contacts": [/* parsed contact objects from step 1 */]}'

Repeat until all batches are committed.

Platform exports (LinkedIn / Instagram)

For native platform ZIP exports, use the dedicated endpoints instead of vCard:

Platform	Parse	Commit
LinkedIn	`POST /api/contacts/import/linkedin/parse`	`POST /api/contacts/import/linkedin/commit`
Instagram	`POST /api/contacts/import/instagram/parse`	`POST /api/contacts/import/instagram/commit`

See the Import guide for what each export contains and how the webapp presents previews.

Create contacts one at a time

For small scripts, POST /api/contacts creates a single contact without the import pipeline. Prefer parse/commit when you have many rows or need the same validation as the webapp importer.

Errors

Import failures return the standard API error envelope. Look up error.code in Error codes — common cases include validation_error and auth_required.

Authentication
API reference — full request/response schemas
Import contacts (webapp)

Bulk import custom contacts