Getting Started: Your First API Call

This step-by-step guide walks you through setting up your Apideck account and making your first Unified API call. You can complete this in under 10 minutes.

• Step 1: Create your account

• Step 2: Enable Unified APIs and connectors

• Step 3: Get your API key

• Step 4: Connect an integration with Vault

• Step 5: Make your first API call

If you haven't already, sign up for Apideck. During signup, you'll choose an application name and subdomain. Once completed, you'll land in the Apideck dashboard.

Tip: You can create multiple applications or environments (e.g., development, staging, production) from a single account. For details on managing these, see How to manage an environment or application in the Account Management section.

Go to the Configuration page in your dashboard.

1. Choose one or more Unified APIs to enable (for example Accounting, CRM, HRIS, ATS, File Storage or E-commerce).

2. Within each Unified API, enable the specific connectors your users will need (e.g., Salesforce, HubSpot, QuickBooks).

The Unified APIs and connectors you enable here will appear for your users in Vault.

Some connectors come with sandbox OAuth apps from Apideck by default, so you can test immediately. When you're ready for production, you'll need your own OAuth credentials - see Going to Production: A Checklist for details.

Go to the API Keys page in your dashboard. You'll find two values you need for all API calls:

• App ID - Your application identifier.

• API Key - Your secret key for authenticating requests.

Copy both and store them securely. If your API key is ever compromised, you can regenerate it from this page. For more on API key management, see the Account Management section.

Important: API calls should always be made server-side to prevent exposing your API key.

Before you can call a Unified API, you need at least one authorized connection. The fastest way to test is with Hosted Vault:

1. Go to the Vault page in your dashboard.

2. Under Hosted Vault, click Launch Demo. This opens Vault for a test consumer.

3. Find one of the connectors you enabled in Step 2 and click Add.

4. Click Authorize and complete the provider's OAuth flow.

Once authorized, you'll be redirected back to Vault and the connection is live.

Note: Some connectors require additional settings before they can be used. Vault will show a "Needs configuration" badge, fill in the required settings and save. For a deeper understanding of how Vault works and the different ways to integrate it, see Understanding Vault and Authentication.

Here's an example curl request to the CRM Unified API that lists companies:

curl --request GET \
  --url 'https://unify.apideck.com/crm/companies' \
  --header 'Authorization: Bearer {API_KEY}' \
  --header 'x-apideck-app-id: {APP_ID}' \
  --header 'x-apideck-consumer-id: test-consumer' \
  --header 'x-apideck-service-id: {SERVICE_ID}'

Replace the placeholders:

• {APP_ID} and {API_KEY} - from Step 3.

• {SERVICE_ID} - the connector ID in kebab-case (e.g., salesforce, hubspot, google-drive). See the full list at developers.apideck.com/connectors. Always send it. Without it, if the consumer has more than one connection for that Unified API, Apideck uses one of them and returns its data with no error.

• test-consumer - the default consumer ID used by Hosted Vault's demo mode.

Once everything is set up correctly, you'll get a JSON response with normalized data from the provider. In case you receive errors or unexpected behavior, check the request logs in your dashboard, see How to see the log of a request for guidance.

For a detailed explanation of what each header does and common mistakes, see Understanding API Headers, Consumers, and Service IDs.

A consumer is one of your customers. You choose the consumer ID yourself: use a stable ID from your own system, such as your account or company ID (for example acme-corp-123). Apideck creates the consumer the first time you use the ID. test-consumer is fine for trying things out, but use your own IDs for real customers.

• One customer company = one consumer ID. Reuse the same ID for all of that customer's connections.

• Don't generate a new ID per login or session. Every new ID is a new consumer, which splits the customer's connections and can increase your number of active consumers.

Apideck doesn't copy data into your own database or API. It gives your app one API to call and sends you webhooks, and your code decides what to store:

• Pull: call the Unified API whenever you need data, for example a scheduled sync with filter[updated_since] to fetch only what changed.

• Push: subscribe to webhooks to hear when records are created or updated, then fetch and store them.

Your app still maps Apideck's unified fields to your own data model, once, instead of once per provider.

Now that you've made your first call, here are the next steps:

• Understand Vault - Learn how to let your users connect integrations from inside your product. See Understanding Vault and Authentication.

• Page through results - Learn how cursor-based pagination, filtering, and sorting work. See How Pagination, Filtering, and Sorting Work.

• Set up webhooks - Get notified in real time when connections change or data updates. See the Webhooks section.

• Explore the API - Use the Apideck API Explorer to test endpoints in your browser with credentials pre-filled from your dashboard.

• Install an SDK - We offer SDKs for JavaScript/TypeScript, PHP, Python, and more.

Related resources:

• Developer docs: Get Started guide

• API Explorer

• Sample projects