Most ServiceNow developers see REST as JSON-in / JSON-out but that’s just the beginning. When building the C3 app, we learned how to fetch and store binary files, securely serve images, and even generate CSV exports directly from ServiceNow. These techniques opened the door to powerful integrations that go way beyond standard JSON payloads.

In this post, I’ll break down how we handled binary image storage, custom file serving, and CSV generation with scripted REST APIs complete with code snippets and lessons learned. If you’ve ever wondered how to work with non-JSON content in ServiceNow, this is your guide to taking REST integrations to the next level.