Docs › Getting Started › Quick Start

Quick Start

Go from zero to your first data collection in under two minutes.

Prerequisites

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": [
    {
      "result": { "version": "HTTP/2", "code": 200, "reason": "" },
      "content-type": "text/html; charset=UTF-8",
      "content-length": "1256"
    }
  ],
  "data": "<!doctype html><html>...</html>",
  "total_time": 0.45
}

The headers field is an array of objects, one per redirect hop. Each entry has a result field with the status line plus every response header the target returned for that hop.

Key fields:

  • status: HTTP status code from the target site
  • data: the response body (HTML, JSON, or raw text)
  • total_time: request duration in seconds

Step 4: Try Different Endpoints

FourA has four endpoints for different situations:

Endpoint Speed Use when
POST /api/auto/ Varies (fast on warm hosts) You don't know which engine the site needs. Pass a URL and let FourA pick the cheapest path that works.
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 an auto request (the smart default):

curl -X POST https://eu.api.foura.ai/api/auto/ \
  -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "url": "https://example.com/product/42",
    "validate": {"data": {"accept": ["Add to cart"]}}
  }'

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

Last updated: July 1, 2026
Authentication →