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Create Envelope

The Create Envelope endpoint creates a new sign envelope in Nitro.

A sign envelope is the container for signature processes in Nitro. It can include assets such as documents, participants, signature fields, and configuration settings that define how the signing process should behave. With the Create Envelope endpoint, you will create an empty sign envelope you can later add assets to.

post/sign/envelopes

Request body

namestring required

The Envelope's name. It doesn't have to be unique.

mode'sequential' | 'parallel' required

The Signing Mode in an enum that defines the signing order. It has two possible values:

  • sequential: Participants receive notifications one at a time, in the order they were added to the envelope. Each new notification is triggered once the previous participant has completed their signing.
  • parallel: All participants are notified at the same time and can sign the documents in the envelope independently, without waiting for others.
notificationsManagedBy'nitro' | 'sender'

Who notifies the participants of this envelope. Two values are accepted:

  • nitro (default): Nitro sends the participant notification emails, as it always has.
  • sender: Nitro sends no automated email notifications to signers or CC recipients — including signature requests, reminders and signature completion notices. You distribute the signing links yourself, using the List Signer Signing URLs by Envelope ID endpoint and the envelope webhooks.

When set to sender, the notification object must be omitted — its subject and body would never be rendered, so sending both is rejected with a 400. When it is omitted or set to nitro, the notification object is required.

This setting is only available to API applications.

By enabling this setting, you assume full responsibility for notifying signers and CC recipients of pending signature requests, deadlines, and completed documents through your own communication channels. Nitro Sign will not notify these participants on your behalf under any circumstances while this setting is enabled.

Depending on your use case and jurisdiction, failure to adequately notify signers may affect the enforceability of the resulting electronic signature or your compliance obligations under applicable e-signature laws (e.g., ESIGN Act, UETA, eIDAS). We strongly recommend consulting your legal or compliance team before enabling this setting in production.

This setting requires SMS authentication to be configured for all signers on the envelope, as an additional safeguard against unauthorized access to signing links. Sending the envelope for signing fails if any signer is missing it.

Response

When an envelope is created you will get a unique ID for it. You can add assets to the envelope later by referencing its unique ID using other endpoints in this API.

IDstring uuid

A unique UUIDv4 string that identifies the envelope in the Nitro system.

createdAtstring date-time

UTC timestamp indicating when the envelope was created.

lastModifiedAtstring date-time

UTC timestamp indicating the last time the envelope was updated. Matches createdAt at the time of creation.

namestring

The name of the envelope.

status'drafted' | 'sent' | 'processing' | 'sealed' | 'rejected' | 'cancelled' | 'deleted'

The internal status of the envelope. Defaults to drafted on creation.

mode'sequential' | 'parallel'

Signing mode for the envelope.

notificationsManagedBy'nitro' | 'sender'

Who notifies the participants of this envelope: nitro or sender. Defaults to nitro.

Changes

Changed in 2 of the 6 revisions of this API.3

  • 7b97ae4578331See the full diff
    • ○

      the request property notification became optional

      request-property-became-optional

  • e6b46ba503042See the full diff
    • ○

      added the new optional request property notificationsManagedBy

      new-optional-request-property

    • ○

      added the optional property notificationsManagedBy to the response with the 201 status

      response-optional-property-added