# CMS Identifiers Search
source: https://developer.mastercard.com/mastercard-processing-core/documentation/use-cases/cms-identifiers-search/index.md

The use cases in this section provide scenarios for retrieving the CMS technical identifiers for the three main objects:

* client
* account contract
* card contract

Use cases can be used even when you do not store CMS identifiers (`clientId`, `accountContractId`, or `cardContractId`) that are used as a path parameter in almost any API operation. So, for example, before executing the [Activate a Card](https://developer.mastercard.com/mastercard-processing-core/documentation/use-cases/card-lifecycle/activate-a-card/index.md) use case and sending a `PUT` request to the `/cards/{card_contract_id}/active` endpoint, if you do not know `card_contract_id`, you must execute the `getCardContractId` operation first ([Retrieve cardContractId](https://developer.mastercard.com/mastercard-processing-core/documentation/use-cases/cms-identifiers-search/retrieve-cardcontractid/index.md) use case) and then use the obtained `cardContractId` in [Activate a Card](https://developer.mastercard.com/mastercard-processing-core/documentation/use-cases/card-lifecycle/activate-a-card/index.md) use case.

Each use case provides the following information:

* A brief description of the use case
* A sequence diagram
* A detailed explanation
* A part of API specification with the endpoint(s) used in the use case

The following use cases are provided in this section:

|                                                                                   Use case                                                                                   |     OperationId      | Method |        URI         |
|------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|----------------------|--------|--------------------|
| [Retrieve clientId](https://developer.mastercard.com/mastercard-processing-core/documentation/use-cases/cms-identifiers-search/retrieve-clientid/index.md)                   | getClientId          | POST   | /clients/searches  |
| [Retrieve accountContractId](https://developer.mastercard.com/mastercard-processing-core/documentation/use-cases/cms-identifiers-search/retrieve-accountcontractid/index.md) | getAccountContractId | POST   | /accounts/searches |
| [Retrieve cardContractId](https://developer.mastercard.com/mastercard-processing-core/documentation/use-cases/cms-identifiers-search/retrieve-cardcontractid/index.md)       | getCardContractId    | POST   | /cards/searches    |