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Quickstart

Get up and running with TABS API in minutes. This guide will walk you through authentication setup and your first API calls.

Prerequisites​

  • A programming environment (examples use curl and Python)
  • Basic knowledge of REST APIs

Create and Setup Your API Key​

Before you can start using TABS API, you'll need to create an API key and set it up in your environment.

1. Create Your API Key​

  1. Visit the TABS Console
  2. Sign in to your account (or create one if you haven't already)
  3. Navigate to the API Keys section and click the "Manage API Keys"
  4. Once you are on the API Keys page, Click "Create New API Key"
  5. Give your key a descriptive name (e.g., "Development", "Production") and click the "Create API Key"
  6. Copy the generated API key and store it securely

⚠️ Important: Your API key will only be shown once. Make sure to copy and store it in a secure location.

2. Set Up Environment Variable​

For security and convenience, we recommend storing your API key as an environment variable rather than hardcoding it in your scripts.

macOS/Linux:

# Add to your shell profile (~/.bashrc, ~/.zshrc, or ~/.bash_profile)
export TABS_API_KEY="your_api_key_here"

# Or set it temporarily for the current session
export TABS_API_KEY="your_api_key_here"

# Reload your shell or run:
source ~/.bashrc  # or ~/.zshrc

Windows (Command Prompt):

# Set temporarily for current session
set TABS_API_KEY=your_api_key_here

# Set permanently (requires restart)
setx TABS_API_KEY "your_api_key_here"

Windows (PowerShell):

# Set temporarily for current session
$env:TABS_API_KEY = "your_api_key_here"

# Set permanently for current user
[Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable("TABS_API_KEY", "your_api_key_here", "User")

3. Verify Your Setup​

Test that your environment variable is set correctly:

macOS/Linux/Windows (Git Bash):

echo $TABS_API_KEY

Windows (Command Prompt):

echo %TABS_API_KEY%

Windows (PowerShell):

echo $env:TABS_API_KEY

You should see your API key printed in the terminal.

Authentication​

TABS API uses API key authentication. Include your API key in the Authorization header:

Authorization: Bearer $TABS_API_KEY

Now that you have your environment variable set up, you can use $TABS_API_KEY (or %TABS_API_KEY% on Windows Command Prompt) in your curl commands.

Your First API Call​

📝 Note: The examples below use placeholder URLs like example.com, blog.example.com, etc. To test these endpoints successfully, replace these with real, accessible URLs from actual websites you want to fetch content from.

Let's start with a simple content fetch to verify your setup:

curl -X GET "https://api.tabstack.ai/fetch?url=https://example.com" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $TABS_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json"

Response:

{
  "url": "https://example.com",
  "statusCode": 200,
  "body": "<!DOCTYPE html><html>...",
  "headers": {
    "content-type": "text/html; charset=UTF-8",
    "server": "nginx"
  }
}

Next Steps​

Now that you're up and running:

  1. Explore Examples: Check out our Research Assistant Example for a complete AI agent implementation
  2. API Reference: Review the API Reference for detailed endpoint documentation

Need Help?​