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Your first API request

From API key to a first response with cURL, Python, or TypeScript.

This guide sends one small request and prints the answer. You need an account, an API key, and credits when using a paid model.

1. Create an API key

Open API Keys in the dashboard and create a key. Copy the secret when it is displayed and keep it on your server.

Set an environment variable in the terminal where you will run the examples:

bash
export SIMPLELLM_API_KEY='YOUR_API_KEY'
export SIMPLELLM_MODEL='qwen3.8-flash-next'
powershell
$env:SIMPLELLM_API_KEY = 'YOUR_API_KEY'
$env:SIMPLELLM_MODEL = 'qwen3.8-flash-next'

qwen3.8-flash-next is an example ID verified in the public catalogue on 2026-09-14, not a permanent availability promise. Replace it with your selected chat model.

2. Check the model catalogue

bash
curl --fail-with-body https://api.simplellm.eu/v1/models \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SIMPLELLM_API_KEY"

Read each model's id. Prices and context windows are in the model catalogue, not in the standard OpenAI model-list response.

3. Send a chat completion

The cURL example requires cURL and jq; Python and TypeScript examples are on the client examples page.

bash
jq -n --arg model "$SIMPLELLM_MODEL" '{
  model: $model,
  messages: [
    {role: "system", content: "Answer briefly and clearly."},
    {role: "user", content: "What is an API?"}
  ],
  max_tokens: 1024,
  stream: false
}' | curl --fail-with-body https://api.simplellm.eu/v1/chat/completions \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SIMPLELLM_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  --data-binary @-

This is a billed inference request when the selected model has a price.

4. Read the answer and usage

The response has a choices array. Read choices[0].message.content for the answer and usage for the reported token counts. This is an illustrative shape, not an actual request receipt:

json
{
  "id": "chatcmpl-example",
  "object": "chat.completion",
  "created": 1789380000,
  "model": "qwen3.8-flash-next",
  "choices": [{
    "index": 0,
    "message": {"role": "assistant", "content": "An API is an interface that lets software communicate."},
    "finish_reason": "stop"
  }],
  "usage": {"prompt_tokens": 28, "completion_tokens": 18, "total_tokens": 46}
}

A reasoning model may use part of its output budget before returning visible text. If the answer is empty and the finish reason is length, inspect the budget and reasoning guidance.

Next steps

Search the complete documentation.