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Developers · Quickstart

Your first zero-spend call.

The public capabilities check needs no key. The remaining TEST_ONLY steps require the owner development account; new customer/tester keys are not issued. Real production, provider execution and billing are switched off service-wide.

Who can do this today: step 1 is public. Authenticated steps 2–5 are currently restricted to the owner development account. New customer/tester accounts and keys are not being issued while the product is being completed.

  1. Read the public capabilities record

    No key needed. This is the authoritative statement of which service switches are on.

    curl https://theamateur.co.uk/api/video/v1/capabilities

    Expect "realProjectCreationEnabled": false, "providerExecutionEnabled": false and "billingEnabled": false while the service is in private testing.

  2. Use the owner test key

    For the current owner-only development account, sign in and open API keys. Test credentials are reveal-once and should be stored in a secret manager, not source control. New customer/tester credentials are not currently issued.

    The owner test key carries the scopes projects:read and projects:test. See API keys for rotation and revocation.

  3. Check who the key belongs to

    A bearer key identifies your organisation and returns the same capability switches.

    curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $AVS_KEY" \
  https://theamateur.co.uk/api/video/v1/me

    A 401 means the header is missing or the key was revoked or mistyped.

  4. Create a TEST_ONLY project

    Test projects exercise the control plane without renderer execution, billing or provider spend.

    curl -X POST https://theamateur.co.uk/api/video/v1/test-projects \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $AVS_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"title":"Connection test"}'

    A 201 response returns the project. Its stage is TEST_ONLY and its nextAction.code is TEST_ONLY_NO_ACTION.

  5. Read it back, or connect your agent

    Fetch the project by id, or point an MCP client at https://theamateur.co.uk/mcp/video with the same key. MCP tools are prefixed: start with video_connection_status, then video_create_test_project.

    curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $AVS_KEY" \
  https://theamateur.co.uk/api/video/v1/projects/<project-id>

    MCP configuration: MCP guide. The same project appears in your customer area.

If something fails

  • 401 — missing, mistyped or revoked key. Create a new one under API keys in the customer area.
  • 403 — the key lacks the scope. Private-test keys cannot create real projects; that is expected.
  • Anything else — see troubleshooting or contact us with the request time and status code (never the key).