Reading the response

Your host replies with something. Dropline's job is to turn that something into one URL. Two fields do it, and they run in order.

1. JSON path — pick a value out of the response body → {{result}}
2. Final URL template — optionally rewrite it into the URL you actually want

Both live under Settings → Hosts → your profile → Response. They apply to the multipart/form-data and binary engines; the S3 engine constructs its URL from the bucket and key instead and does not use the JSON path.

JSON path#

A dot-separated path into the parsed JSON. Each segment is either an object key or an array index.

Given this response:

{
  "status": "success",
  "data": {
    "url": "https://i.example.com/2026/abc.png",
    "thumb": "https://i.example.com/2026/abc.thumb.png"
  }
}

the path is:

data.url

Given a response that wraps results in an array:

{
  "files": [
    { "url": "https://i.example.com/abc.png", "size": 20481 }
  ]
}

the index is just another segment:

files.0.url

Numbers are accepted as well as strings — a response whose link is a bare numeric id still works, and the value is stringified.

When the body is the URL#

Many self-hosted endpoints answer with the link and nothing else:

https://files.example.com/2026/08/abc.png

Leave the JSON path empty. Dropline then takes the whole response body, trims surrounding whitespace and newlines, and uses that as {{result}}. This is also the right setting for an endpoint that returns an empty body — pair it with a final URL template built from {{key}}.

Finding the right path#

If you do not know the response shape, the fastest route is Test Upload. On failure Dropline shows the message; on an unparseable path it says so explicitly:

Path `data.url` not found in the response

Failing that, run the upload once with curl and look:

curl -sS -F "file=@test.png" \
     -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN" \
     https://your-host.example.com/api/upload | jq

Final URL template#

Optional. Leave it empty and {{result}} is used as-is — correct whenever your API already returns an absolute URL.

Fill it in when it does not. Every template variable is available here, plus {{result}}.

Relative path → absolute URL#

The API returns 2026/08/abc.png, and your files are served from a CDN domain:

https://cdn.example.com/{{result}}

Ignore the response, build from the key#

The API returns nothing useful, but you already know where the file went, because your key template put it there:

https://files.example.com/{{key}}

Pair this with an empty JSON path.

Swap the domain#

The API returns an origin URL and you serve through a CDN in front of it. There is no string-replace function, so build the URL from the key instead:

https://cdn.example.com/{{key}}

Diagnosing the two failure messages#

Next#

Credentials and privacy →