What is api?

This repository contains the Pi-hole API, a component that lets other programs talk to Pi-hole and pull out statistics. Pi-hole itself is a popular tool that blocks ads and trackers across your entire home network. This API was designed to be the modern way that the Pi-hole web interface and other tools retrieve data, replacing an older, less flexible system. At a high level, the API works by reading shared memory that Pi-hole's core engine (called FTL) continuously generates. Think of it as a live dashboard data feed: FTL tracks all the DNS queries, blocks, and statistics as they happen, and the API simply reads that shared data and serves it up in a clean, standardized format over HTTP. This means any app or interface can request stats the same way it requests any web page. The people who would use this are primarily the developers building the Pi-hole web interface or third-party tools that want to display Pi-hole data. For example, someone building a mobile app to monitor their home network's ad-blocking stats, or a custom dashboard for a Raspberry Pi setup, would call this API to get real-time numbers. The README is focused on development setup, so it doesn't go into detail about the specific endpoints or data formats the API exposes. One notable thing: this particular repository has been archived, meaning development has moved elsewhere, the README points to a pull request in the FTL repository for more context. The project was written in Rust, a language known for performance and safety, which makes sense for a lightweight service running on devices like Raspberry Pis. However, since it's archived and was marked "work in progress," this version isn't being actively developed anymore.