How do i programattically create a new thread?

Sorry to put this int he PHP forum, but I have no other recourse that I can see. I assume I will be performing the work in Ruby on Rails, but I can probably do the translation from PHP to Rails on my own. What I am looking for is guidance to the question below.

Hi,

I'm creating an integrated site with a Ruby on Rails app and a vBulletin forum. From my ROR app, I want certain actions to result in the generation of a new thread in the forum.

I have searched high and low for this information. I am new to vBulletin so maybe I am not seraching effectively.

As I understand it, I could directly modify the tables, and perhaps replicate the inserts that are performed by newthread.php.

But is that the recommended / easiest thing to do? I thought there might already be a published recipe for this ... or perhaps even better , a hack or API that I could tap into.

Thanks in advance.