Getting started

This guide will walk you through authentication, making your first request, and best practices for secure API usage.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, ensure you have:

• A Pave account with API access enabled
• A tool for making HTTP requests (cURL, Postman, or a programming language)
• A secure place to store your API credentials

Step 1: Generate your API key

Your API key is your authentication credential for all API requests.

1. Log into your Pave account
2. Navigate to Settings > Connections
3. Click Generate API Key
4. Important: Copy and save your key immediately - it won't be shown again!

# Your API key will look like this:
3A8F92C4-7B2E-4D6F-9E1C-48DA3F5B8C91_kRmNpXvQ9Hs2wLyTbJfZgUaE5M7CnV4D

Step 2: Create a test request

Verify your API key is working with a simple ping request:

curl -X GET https://api.pave.com/ping \
  -H "x-api-key: YOUR_API_KEY"

Expected response:

{
  message: "pong"
}

Next steps

Now that you've successfully authenticated and made your first API calls:

1. Explore the API Reference for all available endpoints
2. Check out Use cases to see how the broader Pave community uses the API