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Read data by sending a GET request to any path with .json appended.

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Basic read

curl 'https://chess-app.larkdb.net/my-game/players/alice.json'
Response: 
{
  "name": "Alice",
  "score": 250,
  "online": true
}
If the path doesn’t exist, the response is null.

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Shallow reads

For large datasets, you often don’t need the entire subtree. Add shallow=true to get only the immediate children without recursing into them: 
curl 'https://chess-app.larkdb.net/my-game/players.json?shallow=true'
By default, shallow reads replace every child with true. You see which keys exist, but nothing about their values or size: 
{
  "alice": true,
  "bob": true,
  "carol": true
}

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Enhanced shallow reads

Add v=2 for a more useful shallow response. With v=2, primitive values (strings, numbers, booleans) are returned as-is, and container objects are returned as {".sz": N} where N is the size in bytes: 
curl 'https://chess-app.larkdb.net/my-game/.json?shallow=true&v=2'

{
  "players": {".sz": 4096},
  "settings": "dark",
  "playerCount": 42,
  "active": true
}
This tells you a lot more at a glance. players is an object containing ~4 KB of data, while settings, playerCount, and active are leaf values you can read directly. Useful for exploring an unfamiliar database or deciding which subtrees are worth fetching in full.
Without v=2, the response above would be {"players": true, "settings": true, "playerCount": true, "active": true}, with no way to tell which children are containers and which are primitives.

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Querying

Filter and sort data using query parameters. These map directly to the query methods available in the SDKs.

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Order by

Specify a sort order with orderBy: 
# Order by a child key
curl 'https://chess-app.larkdb.net/my-game/players.json?orderBy="score"'

# Order by key
curl 'https://chess-app.larkdb.net/my-game/players.json?orderBy="$key"'

# Order by value (for lists of primitives)
curl 'https://chess-app.larkdb.net/my-game/highscores.json?orderBy="$value"'

# Order by priority
curl 'https://chess-app.larkdb.net/my-game/tasks.json?orderBy="$priority"'
The orderBy value must be a JSON string. Wrap it in double quotes in the URL. Most shells require escaping: orderBy=\"score\" or orderBy=%22score%22.

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Limit results

# First 5 results
curl 'https://chess-app.larkdb.net/my-game/players.json?orderBy="score"&limitToFirst=5'

# Last 10 results
curl 'https://chess-app.larkdb.net/my-game/players.json?orderBy="score"&limitToLast=10'

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Range filters

# Players with score >= 100
curl 'https://chess-app.larkdb.net/my-game/players.json?orderBy="score"&startAt=100'

# Players with score <= 500
curl 'https://chess-app.larkdb.net/my-game/players.json?orderBy="score"&endAt=500'

# Players with score between 100 and 500
curl 'https://chess-app.larkdb.net/my-game/players.json?orderBy="score"&startAt=100&endAt=500'

# Players with exactly 250 points
curl 'https://chess-app.larkdb.net/my-game/players.json?orderBy="score"&equalTo=250'
Range values can be numbers, strings, or booleans. String values must be JSON-encoded (wrapped in quotes).

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Formatting

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Pretty print

curl 'https://chess-app.larkdb.net/my-game/players.json?print=pretty'
Returns indented, human-readable JSON. Useful for debugging.

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Silent response

curl -X PUT 'https://chess-app.larkdb.net/my-game/players/alice/score.json' \
  -d '300' \
  --header 'print: silent'
Or as a query parameter: 
curl -X PUT 'https://chess-app.larkdb.net/my-game/players/alice/score.json?print=silent' \
  -d '300'
Returns 204 No Content instead of echoing the written data back. Saves bandwidth on writes when you don’t need the response body.

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JSONP

For cross-domain requests from browsers that don’t support CORS: 
curl 'https://chess-app.larkdb.net/my-game/players.json?callback=myFunc'
Response: 
myFunc({"alice":{"name":"Alice","score":250}})

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Download

curl 'https://chess-app.larkdb.net/my-game/players.json?download=players.json'
Sets the Content-Disposition header so browsers treat the response as a file download.

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Timeouts

Set a request timeout with the timeout parameter: 
# 10-second timeout
curl 'https://chess-app.larkdb.net/my-game/big-dataset.json?timeout=10s'

# 3-minute timeout
curl 'https://chess-app.larkdb.net/my-game/big-dataset.json?timeout=3min'
Valid suffixes: ms, s, min. Maximum timeout is 15 minutes. Default is 30 seconds. If the request exceeds the timeout, you’ll get a 504 Gateway Timeout response.