> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.scout.chowmes.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Quickstart

> Get an API key by email and make your first hosted call in under a minute.

## 1. Sign up

Register at [scout.chowmes.com/beta](https://scout.chowmes.com/beta) with your name and email. Scout provisions a hosted account and emails you a one-time API key. There is no self-serve dashboard signup for the key itself, the key only ever arrives by email, and it is shown in plaintext exactly once (in that email).

Under the hood this hits:

```bash theme={null}
POST /v1/hosted/beta-key
Content-Type: application/json

{"name": "Ada Lovelace", "email": "ada@example.com"}
```

<Note>
  If an account already exists for that email, Scout returns the existing account status instead of a new key, it will not silently double-provision. Lost your key? See [Support](/support).
</Note>

## 2. Store your key

```bash theme={null}
export SCOUT_HOSTED_BASE_URL="https://scout.chowmes.com"
export SCOUT_HOSTED_API_KEY="scout_live_paste_the_delivered_key"
```

Never commit this key, log it, or paste it into frontend code. Treat it like a database password.

## 3. Check your account

```bash theme={null}
curl "$SCOUT_HOSTED_BASE_URL/v1/hosted/me" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SCOUT_HOSTED_API_KEY"
```

Returns your plan, remaining standard and browser credits, and per-plan limits, no raw key in the response.

## 4. Make your first call

Scrape a single public page and get back markdown plus evidence:

```bash theme={null}
curl -X POST "$SCOUT_HOSTED_BASE_URL/v1/hosted/scrape" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SCOUT_HOSTED_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"url":"https://example.com","formats":["markdown"],"timeout_ms":30000}'
```

## 5. Read the evidence block

The response wraps the scrape result in hosted usage metadata:

```json theme={null}
{
  "success": true,
  "hosted": {
    "tenant_id": "tn_..",
    "key_id": "key_..",
    "credits_charged": 1,
    "credit_type": "standard"
  },
  "scrape": {
    "success": true,
    "url": "https://example.com",
    "markdown": "# Example Domain\n..",
    "metadata": {
      "url": "https://example.com",
      "crawled_at": "2026-07-06T18:00:00Z",
      "title": "Example Domain",
      "word_count": 28
    },
    "content_hash": "sha256:..",
    "quality_score": 0.94,
    "duration_ms": 812
  }
}
```

`hosted.credits_charged` tells you exactly what this call cost. `scrape.metadata` and `scrape.content_hash` are your evidence, the source, the timestamp, and a hash you can use to detect drift on repeat runs.

From here, see [Endpoints](/endpoints/scrape) for crawl, map, screenshot, products, and company runs, or [Credits](/credits) for how usage adds up against your plan.