Quickstart

Get up and running with the xQR API. By the end of this guide, you’ll have created your first short link programmatically.

Prerequisites

• An xQR Platform account on the Pro plan or higher (API access is not available on the Free plan)
• Your workspace at platform.xqr.co

Create an API Key

1. Go to Settings → Developers in your xQR dashboard
2. Click Create API Key
3. Give it a name (e.g. “My first key”) and select scopes — choose * for full access
4. Copy the key immediately — it’s shown only once

Your key looks like: xqr_pk_a1b2c3d4.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Caution

Store your API key securely. Never commit it to version control or expose it in client-side code.

Make Your First Request

curl

curl -X POST https://xqr.co/api/v1/links \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "url": "https://example.com",
    "custom_slug": "my-first-link"
  }'

TypeScript

const res = await fetch("https://xqr.co/api/v1/links", {
  method: "POST",
  headers: {
    Authorization: "Bearer YOUR_API_KEY",
    "Content-Type": "application/json",
  },
  body: JSON.stringify({
    url: "https://example.com",
    custom_slug: "my-first-link",
  }),
});

const { data } = await res.json();
console.log(data.short_url); // https://xqr.co/my-first-link

Python

import httpx

res = httpx.post(
    "https://xqr.co/api/v1/links",
    headers={"Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_API_KEY"},
    json={
        "url": "https://example.com",
        "custom_slug": "my-first-link",
    },
)

data = res.json()["data"]
print(data["short_url"])  # https://xqr.co/my-first-link

Response

Every v1 API response wraps data in an envelope:

{
  "data": {
    "id": "550e8400-e29b-41d4-a716-446655440000",
    "short_url": "https://xqr.co/my-first-link",
    "short_code": "my-first-link",
    "destination": "https://example.com",
    "enabled": true,
    "labels": [],
    "scan_count": 0,
    "created_at": "2026-03-21T10:30:00Z"
  },
  "meta": {
    "request_id": "req_abc123",
    "rate_limit": {
      "limit": 1000,
      "remaining": 999,
      "burst_limit": 10,
      "burst_remaining": 9
    }
  }
}

Next Steps

• Authentication — Understand API keys, scopes, and security
• Rate Limits — Know your plan’s limits
• API Reference — Explore all 37 endpoints
• MCP Server — Connect AI agents to xQR