Geoservices are composed of two important aspects: Services and Layers.

By analogy, a Service is like a database and a Layer is like a Table. A Service will have one or many Layers. A Layer has many Features, which are like Rows.

Authentication

An access token is required for creating a service.

POST https://www.arcgis.com/sharing/rest/tokens/generateToken

• f=json
• username={username}
• password={password}
• expiration={time in minutes}

Creating a Service

To create a Layer, you will first need to create a Service, and then you can add Layers.

POST https://www.arcgis.com/sharing/rest/content/users/{username}/createService

• outputType=featureService
• createParameters={'name':'ExampleService'}
• f=json
• token=...

Response

{
  "encodedServiceURL": "http://services.arcgis.com/bkrWlSKcjUDFDtgw/arcgis/rest/services/ExampleService/FeatureServer",
  "itemId": "cfda...",
  "name": "ExampleService",
  "serviceItemId": "cfda...",
  "serviceurl": "http://services.arcgis.com/bkrWlSKcjUDFDtgw/arcgis/rest/services/ExampleService/FeatureServer",
  "size": -1,
  "success": true,
  "type": "Feature Service",
  "isView": false
}

For more details, see the Create Service API Documentation

Creating a Layer

A Layer requires a schema, defined as fields.

To create a layer, you need to call addToDefinition in the the rest/admin/services for your Service.

POST {serviceurl}/addToDefinition

The serviceurl was returned in the API createService. You can also build the URL: POST https://services.arcgis.com/{orgId}/arcgis/rest/admin/services/{ServiceName}/FeatureServer/addToDefinition

• addToDefinition=... see Layer definition below
• async=true
• f=json
• token=...

Fields

First, a layer requires a schema for Fields. A Field includes name, type, alias, and other database parameters.

A Field of type esriFieldTypeOID is required for storage and indexing.

• name - column name, cannot contain spaces or special punctuation
• alias - human-readable name
• type - one of esriFieldTypeString, esriFieldTypeDouble, esriFieldTypeInt

An example Field JSON:

[{
  "name": "OBJECTID",
  "alias": "OBJECTID",
  "type": "esriFieldTypeOID",
  "sqlType": "sqlTypeOther",
  "nullable": false,
  "editable": false,
  "domain": null,
  "defaultValue": null
},{
  "name": "ExampleSField",
  "alias": "An Example String Field",
  "nullable": true,
  "editable": true,
  "domain": null,
  "defaultValue": null,
  "type": "esriFieldTypeString",
  "sqlType": "sqlTypeNVarchar",
  "length": 256
},{
  "name": "ExampleDField",
  "alias": "An Example Double Field",
  "nullable": true,
  "editable": true,
  "domain": null,
  "defaultValue": null,
  "type": "esriFieldTypeDouble",
  "sqlType": "sqlTypeNVarchar",
  "length": 256
}]

This JSON is contained in the full layers: [] definition below.

Layer definition

The full layer definition is:

{
  "layers": [
    {
      "adminLayerInfo": {
        "geometryField": {
          "name": "Shape",
          "srid": 4326
        }
      },
      "name": "ExampleLayer",
      "type": "Feature Layer",
      "displayField": "",
      "description": "",
      "copyrightText": "",
      "defaultVisibility": true,
      "relationships": [

      ],
      "isDataVersioned": false,
      "supportsRollbackOnFailureParameter": true,
      "supportsAdvancedQueries": true,
      "geometryType": "esriGeometryPoint",
      "minScale": 0,
      "maxScale": 0,
      "extent": {
        "type": "extent",
        "xmin": -8591193.021457616,
        "ymin": 4686637.938322677,
        "xmax": -8560023.564035526,
        "ymax": 4726686.262985074,
        "spatialReference": {
          "wkid": 102100
        }
      },
      "drawingInfo": {
        "transparency": 0,
        "labelingInfo": null,
        "renderer": {
          "type": "simple",
          "symbol": {
            "color": [
              20,
              158,
              206,
              130
            ],
            "size": 18,
            "angle": 0,
            "xoffset": 0,
            "yoffset": 0,
            "type": "esriSMS",
            "style": "esriSMSCircle",
            "outline": {
              "color": [
                255,
                255,
                255,
                220
              ],
              "width": 2.25,
              "type": "esriSLS",
              "style": "esriSLSSolid"
            }
          }
        }
      },
      "allowGeometryUpdates": true,
      "hasAttachments": true,
      "htmlPopupType": "esriServerHTMLPopupTypenull",
      "hasM": false,
      "hasZ": false,
      "objectIdField": "OBJECTID",
      "globalIdField": "",
      "typeIdField": "",
      "fields": fields,
      "indexes": [

      ],
      "types": [

      ],
      "templates": [
        {
          "name": "New Feature",
          "description": "",
          "drawingTool": "esriFeatureEditToolPoint",
          "prototype": {
            "attributes": {
              "Name": null,
              "Integer": 0,
              "Date": "2016-12-22T02:34:51.768Z"
            }
          }
        }
      ],
      "supportedQueryFormats": "JSON",
      "hasStaticData": false,
      "maxRecordCount": 1000,
      "capabilities": "Query,Editing,Create,Update,Delete"
    }
  ]
}

For more details, see the Add to Definition API Documentation