# Retrieve an item category

Operation ID: `getItemCategory`

Group: Inventory › Item Categories

[Open in the interactive reference](https://docs.api.lensing.ai/lensing/v1/endpoints/getItemCategory)

`GET /inventory/item-categories/{id}`

Read-only: Reads and returns; changes nothing.

Retrieves an item category. The category comes back with its parent. POST inventory/item-categories/search returns the same fields, and GET inventory/item-categories returns all of them except parentId.

Names aren't unique. To find categories by name, filter GET inventory/item-categories or POST inventory/item-categories/search by name, which can return several.

## Parameters

| Name | In | Type | Required | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `Api-Version` | header | string · v1 | yes | The API version this request targets, named by its public identifier. Required on every request; omitting it, or naming a version this company does not have, is answered with 400. This document describes version `v1`. |
| `id` | path | string | yes | The unique identifier of the item category you want to retrieve. |

## Response

`200` Success

Under `data` (getItemCategoryOutput):

| Field | Type | Required | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `id` | string | yes | The unique identifier for the item category. Example: `"a2f47b91-0c6d-4e38-95b1-7d3e6a428c50"`. |
| `name` | string | yes | The display name of the category, for example 'Hardware'. Not unique: two categories can share a name, so use id to address one. Example: `"Hardware"`. |
| `description` | string | no | A free-form description of what the category covers. Absent when none was set. Example: `"Fasteners, fittings and tooling"`. |
| `active` | boolean | no | Whether the category can be chosen on new items. When false the category is retired: existing items keep it and new ones cannot be assigned to it. Example: `true`. |
| `idealTurnoverRatio` | decimal | no | The target inventory turnover for items in this category, in times per year. For analytics only. A ratio rather than an amount, so it has no currency. Example: `"6.50"`. |
| `lastModifiedDate` | date-time | no | The date and time the category last changed, in UTC. Format YYYY-MM-DDTHH:mm:ss.sssZ. Example: `"2026-05-12T09:30:00.000Z"`. |
| `parentId` | string | no | The identifier of the category this one sits under. Absent for a top-level category. See id on GET inventory/item-categories/:id. |

```json
{
  "data": {
    "id": "a2f47b91-0c6d-4e38-95b1-7d3e6a428c50",
    "name": "Hardware",
    "description": "Fasteners, fittings and tooling",
    "active": true,
    "idealTurnoverRatio": "6.50",
    "lastModifiedDate": "2026-05-12T09:30:00.000Z",
    "parentId": "3fa85f64-5717-4562-b3fc-2c963f66afa6"
  },
  "diagnostics": [
    {
      "code": "<code>",
      "message": "<message>",
      "severity": "error",
      "path": [
        "<path>"
      ],
      "details": "<details>"
    }
  ]
}
```

## Errors

| Code | Status |
| --- | --- |
| `NOT_FOUND` | 400 |

## Statuses

- `400` — Invalid request or business failure. Codes: NOT_FOUND
- `401` — The request carries no valid access token.
- `403` — Not authorized
- `404` — Not found
- `429` — Too many requests from this client address. The response has no body and no `Retry-After` header.
- `500` — Internal server error