Making Your First API Call

Learn the fundamental steps of constructing and sending an API request, including setting headers and handling responses.

Before you start, ensure you have:

• An API key (see Account Setup)
• A tool for making HTTP requests (curl, Postman, or your preferred programming language)
• Basic understanding of JSON

All API requests follow this general pattern:

• Base URL: https://api.company.com/v1
• Authentication: API key in Authorization header
• Content-Type: application/json for requests with bodies
• HTTP Method: GET, POST, PUT, DELETE depending on the operation

Here's an example of analyzing text with our API:

python
import requests

api_key = "YOUR_API_KEY"

url = "https://api.company.com/v1/analyze"

headers = {

"Authorization": f"Api-Key {api_key}",

"Content-Type": "application/json"

}

data = {

"text": "Your text to analyze",

"features": ["sentiment", "entities", "keywords"]

}

response = requests.post(url, headers=headers, json=data)

if response.status_code == 200:

result = response.json()

print(f"Analysis results: {result}")

else:

print(f"Error: {response.status_code} - {response.text}")

Successful responses have a 200 OK status and return JSON. Always check the status code before processing the response body. For error handling strategies, see our Error Handling Guide.

Use our API Playground in the Developer Portal to test requests without writing code. It provides a visual interface for constructing requests and viewing responses.