telephony
ARI (Asterisk REST Interface)
ARI, the Asterisk REST Interface, is a modern API that lets developers build custom call logic by controlling channels and bridges through web-style requests.
ARI stands for the Asterisk REST Interface. It is a modern way for developers to control Asterisk, the phone engine behind VICIdial, using the same kind of web requests that power most apps today. Where older tools just let you watch events and send a few commands, ARI hands you the steering wheel: you can take a call and decide exactly what happens to it, step by step, from your own program rather than from a config file buried on the server.
The core idea is that ARI lets your own program own a Channel. You can answer it, play a sound, gather a keypress, move the caller into a ConfBridge room, and decide what to do next, all from outside code. This is far more flexible than scripting everything inside Asterisk itself, and it is how many custom call flows, menus, and smart routing features get built when the standard options are not enough.
ARI versus AMI
It helps to compare ARI with its older sibling. AMI, the Asterisk Manager Interface, is great for monitoring and for simple commands like originate or hangup. AMI (Asterisk Manager Interface) tells you what is happening; ARI lets you decide what happens. ARI also speaks in web-friendly requests and can push updates over a Webhook-style connection, which makes it a natural fit for modern apps and for the Non-agent API layer that outside systems use to drive VICIdial. In practice many systems use both, AMI for the firehose of events and ARI for the precise control.
Most VICIdial operators never write ARI code themselves, and that is fine. You meet it when a developer builds something custom, such as a special call menu or an automated handler that does not ship with VICIdial out of the box. Knowing the name and roughly what it does helps you talk to that developer, scope the work, and understand why a custom feature behaves the way it does.
Related terms
AMI (Asterisk Manager Interface)
AMI, the Asterisk Manager Interface, is a control channel that lets software watch live call events and send commands like originate or hangup to Asterisk.
Asterisk
Asterisk is the open-source telephony engine that VICIdial runs on, handling the actual placing, bridging, and recording of calls beneath the dialer's logic.
Channel
A single call path on your trunk, where each live call uses exactly one channel, so the channel count is the cap on how many calls can run at once.
ConfBridge
ConfBridge is the modern Asterisk conference bridge that joins multiple callers into one audio room without the special timing hardware that older MeetMe required.
Non-agent API
The non-agent API is a VICIdial web interface that lets outside systems read data and trigger actions, like adding leads or pulling stats, without an agent logged in.
Webhook
An automatic HTTP message VICIdial sends to a URL you choose when something happens, so an outside system learns about an event without polling for it.