Objects are a key concept in the Google Theat Intelligence API. Each object has an identifier and a type. Identifiers are unique among objects of the same type, which means that a (type, identifier) pair uniquely identifies any object across the API. In this documentation, those (type, identifier) pairs are referred as object descriptors.

Each object has an associated URL with the following structure:

https://www.virustotal.com/api/v3/{collection name}/{object id}

Usually {collection name} is the plural form of the object type, for example, files is the collection containing all the objects of type file, and analyses is the collection containing all the analysis objects. The format for {object id} varies from one object type to another.

A GET request to the object's URL returns information about the object in the following format:

{
  "data": {
    "type": "{object type}",
    "id": "{object id}",
    "links": {
      "self": "https://www.virustotal.com/api/v3/{collection name}/{object id}"
    },
    "attributes" : {
      "integer_attribute": 1234,
      "string_attribute": "this is a string",
      "dictionary_attribute": { "one": 1, "two": 2 },
      "list_attribute": [ "foo", "bar", "baz" ]
    },
    "relationships" : {
       ..
    }
  } 
}

Besides an ID and a type, the object has a set of attributes and relationships. Attributes can be of any type supported by JSON, including lists and dictionaries. The attributes field is always present in all objects, but relationships is optional, depending on whether or not you asked for relationships to be included while making your request. This will discussed in depth in the Relationships section.

Each object type has its own pre-defined set of attributes, you won't be able to add nor remove attributes, you can only modify existing ones (as long as they are writable). To modify an object's attributes you must send a PATCH request to the object's URL. If you try to modify a read-only attribute you will get an error. The PATCH request's body must contain the attributes you want to modify in a structure like the one shown in the example below. Any attribute not included in the request will remain unchanged.

{
  "data": {
    "type": "{object type}",
    "id": "{object id}",
    "attributes" : {
      "integer_attribute": 1234,
      "string_attribute": "this is a new string",
    }
  } 
}

Notice that both the object's ID and type are included in the PATCH request's body, and they must match those specified in the URL.

Some object types can be also deleted by sending a DELETE request to the object's URL.