Participants

A participant represents a user in your system. You identify participants with your own external IDs, and Scrip handles enrollment, balances, and state tracking.

Creating participants

Explicitly via the API

POST /v1/participants

{
  "external_id": "user_123",
  "program_id": "{program_id}",
  "email": "jane@example.com",
  "first_name": "Jane",
  "last_name": "Doe"
}

Field	Required	Description
`external_id`	Yes	Your application’s user identifier
`program_id`	No	Enroll the participant in a program on creation
`status`	No	`ACTIVE` (default), `SUSPENDED`, or `CLOSED`
`email`	No	Contact email (validated)
`phone`	No	Contact phone number
`first_name`	No	First name
`last_name`	No	Last name
`display_name`	No	Display name
`attributes`	No	Key-value metadata
`tags`	No	List of string labels

If a participant with the same external_id already exists, the call upserts: it updates the existing participant instead of creating a duplicate.

Automatically on first event

When a program’s on_unknown_participant is set to CREATE (the default), participants are created the first time you send an event with an unrecognized external_id:

POST /v1/events

{
  "program_id": "{program_id}",
  "external_id": "user_456",
  "idempotency_key": "signup-user-456",
  "event_timestamp": "2025-01-15T10:30:00Z",
  "event_data": {"type": "signup"}
}

Scrip creates the participant, enrolls them in the program, and processes the event in one step. Set on_unknown_participant to REJECT if you want to require explicit creation before sending events. See Programs for details.

Auto-enrollment of existing participants

When an event targets a participant who exists but isn’t enrolled in the event’s program, Scrip automatically enrolls them. This applies across all identity paths (external_id, participant_id, recipient_id, recipient_external_id). Enrollment status is per-program and separate from the participant’s own status; an inactive enrollment is reactivated automatically by the next event. The on_unknown_participant setting only controls whether new participants are created. It does not affect enrollment of existing ones.

Profile fields

Participants support optional profile fields for contact and display information: email, phone, first_name, last_name, and display_name. These are returned in all participant responses (create, update, get, list). Profile fields follow a three-state convention:

Value sent	Behavior
Omitted (or `null`)	Existing value is preserved
Non-empty string	Field is set to the new value
Empty string (`""`)	Field is cleared

The email field is validated on both create and update. Invalid addresses return a 400 error.

PATCH /v1/participants/{id}

{
  "email": "jane@example.com",
  "display_name": "Jane Doe"
}

Clear a field by sending an empty string:

PATCH /v1/participants/{id}

{
  "phone": ""
}

Identifiers

Participants have two IDs:

ID	Format	Use
`id`	UUID	Scrip’s internal identifier, used in all API paths
`external_id`	String	Your application’s user ID, used for lookups

To find a participant by your external ID:

GET /v1/participants?external_id=user_123

Use the returned id for all subsequent API calls. The list endpoint returns identifiers, status, and profile fields. To get the full participant state in one call, use the detail endpoint:

GET /v1/participants/{id}

The detail response includes balances, tags, counters, attributes, tiers, program_ids, and profile fields inline.

Status

A participant’s status controls what operations are allowed:

Status	Description
`ACTIVE`	Normal operation. All actions allowed.
`SUSPENDED`	Temporary freeze (e.g., fraud review, compliance hold). Reversible.
`CLOSED`	Deactivated. Can be transitioned back to `ACTIVE` or `SUSPENDED`.

Allowed actions by status

This table covers rule actions, meaning what the rules engine can do when it processes an event for the participant. The direct balance API is gated separately: forfeit and void-hold requests are allowed on CLOSED participants so you can clean up balances after account closure (both remain blocked for SUSPENDED). See Balance Operations.

Action	`ACTIVE`	`SUSPENDED` / `CLOSED`
`CREDIT`	Yes	Blocked
`DEBIT`	Yes	Blocked
`HOLD`	Yes	Blocked
`RELEASE`	Yes	Blocked
`FORFEIT`	Yes	Blocked
`VOID_HOLD`	Yes	Blocked
`COUNTER`	Yes	Blocked
`TAG` / `UNTAG`	Yes	Allowed
`SET_ATTRIBUTE`	Yes	Allowed
`SET_TIER`	Yes	Allowed
`BROADCAST`	Yes	Allowed
`SCHEDULE_EVENT`	Yes	Allowed

Balance and counter actions are blocked because a suspended or closed participant should not accumulate value. Metadata actions (tags, attributes, tiers) are allowed because you still need to manage inactive accounts: tagging a participant with fraud_confirmed, setting attributes for audit trails, or adjusting tiers during a review period.

Inactive participants and events

Events whose caller or recipient is SUSPENDED or CLOSED are rejected before any rule runs. The event is accepted (202) and then recorded as a terminal FAILED event carrying error_code participant_suspended or participant_closed, with a matching event.failed webhook. Direct API management of tags, attributes, and tiers is not gated.

Idempotent replays are unaffected: retrying an event that was accepted while the participant was still ACTIVE returns the original event rather than a lifecycle rejection.

PATCH /v1/participants/{id}/status

{"status": "SUSPENDED"}

Balances

Check a participant’s current balances across all assets:

GET /v1/participants/{id}/balances

Balances are split by asset into three buckets:

Bucket	Description
`AVAILABLE`	Spendable immediately
`HELD`	Reserved for authorization holds, pending settlements, or fraud review
`DEFERRED`	Not yet matured. A `LOT`-mode credit to `AVAILABLE` with a future `matures_at` lands here instead and moves to `AVAILABLE` automatically when the date passes.

You can perform manual balance adjustments directly on a participant:

POST /v1/participants/{id}/balances/adjust

{
  "program_id": "{program_id}",
  "asset_id": "{asset_id}",
  "type": "CREDIT",
  "amount": "500",
  "description": "Customer service goodwill credit"
}

See Balance Operations for hold, release, forfeit, and other operations.

Transaction history

View the ledger entries for a participant:

GET /v1/participants/{id}/activity/history

Returns a chronological list of credits, debits, holds, and releases with journal entry details.

Time-range filters

The endpoint supports two independent time-range filters that can be combined (AND semantics):

Filter	Filters on	Use case
`from` / `to`	`created_at` (system ingestion time)	When the journal entry was recorded
`event_from` / `event_to`	`event_timestamp` (event occurrence time)	When the originating event occurred in your system

Entries without an originating event fall back to created_at for event_from/event_to filtering. You can also retrieve the events processed for a participant:

GET /v1/participants/{id}/activity/events

Participant state

Tags, counters, attributes, and tiers live on the participant and are readable in rules. See State management for how to read, update, and use them.

Getting Started

Foundations

Earning

Participant State

Ledger & Balances

Spending

Operations

Advanced

Reference

Creating participants

Explicitly via the API

Automatically on first event

Auto-enrollment of existing participants

Profile fields

Identifiers

Status

Allowed actions by status

Inactive participants and events

Balances

Transaction history

Time-range filters

Participant state

​Creating participants

​Explicitly via the API

​Automatically on first event

​Auto-enrollment of existing participants

​Profile fields

​Identifiers

​Status

​Allowed actions by status

​Inactive participants and events

​Balances

​Transaction history

​Time-range filters

​Participant state

Creating participants

Explicitly via the API

Automatically on first event

Auto-enrollment of existing participants

Profile fields

Identifiers

Status

Allowed actions by status

Inactive participants and events

Balances

Transaction history

Time-range filters

Participant state