Quick Start Guide
Go from zero to your first data collection in under two minutes.
Prerequisites
- A FourA account (sign up here)
- Your API key (create one in the Dashboard)
Step 1: Get Your API Key
Sign in to the Dashboard and create an API key. It looks like this: pk_live_a1b2c3d4e5f6...
Copy it. You'll need it for every request.
Step 2: Make Your First Request
Open a terminal and run this (replace YOUR_API_KEY with your actual key):
curl -X POST https://eu.api.foura.ai/api/single/ \
-H "X-API-Key: YOUR_API_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"method": "GET", "url": "https://example.com"}'
This sends an HTTP request to example.com and returns the page HTML.
Step 3: Read the Response
{
"status": 200,
"headers": [["content-type", "text/html"]],
"data": "<!doctype html><html>...</html>",
"total_time": 0.45
}
Key fields:
status: HTTP status code from the target sitedata: the response body (HTML, JSON, or raw text)total_time: request duration in seconds
Step 4: Try Different Endpoints
FourA has three endpoints for different situations:
| Endpoint | Speed | Use when |
|---|---|---|
POST /api/single/ |
Fastest (200ms-2s) | Static pages, APIs, server-rendered sites |
POST /api/browser/ |
Medium (2s-10s) | JavaScript-heavy pages, SPAs, dynamic content |
POST /api/proxy/ |
Fast (1s-5s) | Sites with bot detection, geo-restricted content |
Try a browser request:
curl -X POST https://eu.api.foura.ai/api/browser/ \
-H "X-API-Key: YOUR_API_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"url": "https://example.com", "timeout_ms": 15000}'
Try a proxy request (automatic proxy rotation):
curl -X POST https://eu.api.foura.ai/api/proxy/ \
-H "X-API-Key: YOUR_API_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
"maxTries": 3,
"request": {
"method": "GET",
"url": "https://example.com",
"unblocker": true
}
}'
What's Next
- Authentication: API key management and security
- API Endpoints: Full parameter reference for all three endpoints
- SDKs and Libraries: Examples in Python, Node.js, Go, Ruby
- Choosing the Right Endpoint: When to use single vs. browser vs. proxy