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

# Getting Started

> How to get started with the AI or Not API

## Overview

1. **Create an account:** Visit [aiornot.com](https://aiornot.com) and choose any plan that includes the API access you need.
2. **Locate your API key:** Once logged in, head to **[API](https://www.aiornot.com/dashboard/api)** tab and click copy the generated key.
3. **Call appropriate API endpoint**: See the [API Reference](/api-reference) for details.

## Authentication

All permissioned endpoints require the API key as a bearer token in the `Authorization` header.

<Warning>
  This key is a secret and should be stored securely.
</Warning>

Think of it like your password. Anyone with access to this key can make requests to the API
on your behalf, using your quota. Code examples in the [API Reference](/api-reference) show how to
include the API key in your requests.

## Response Serialization

The API returns JSON responses. [API Reference](/api-reference) shows what that response
format looks like for each endpoint. However, there is one critical thing to note
when integrating the API into your application:

<Warning>
  We may add additional fields to existing endpoint responses without changing the API version.
</Warning>

However, we will never remove or rename a field without releasing a new API version.

Successful integrations must be resilient to new fields. This allows us to add new information
to responses (e.g. a new image generator classification) without breaking existing integrations.

To make this more concrete, image you are using pydantic in Python to deserialize the response.
At integration time, you might have code that looks like,

```python theme={null}
class ExampleResp(BaseModel):
    is_ai: bool
```

which successfully deserializes responses like,

```json theme={null}
{
    "is_ai": true
}
```

If we added a new field to the response, e.g.

```json theme={null}
{
    "is_ai": true,
    "is_upscaled": false
}
```

your deserialization code will break unless you had something like,

```python theme={null}
class ExampleResp(BaseModel):
    is_ai: bool

    # Ignore any extra fields in the response
    model_config = ConfigDict(extra='ignore')  
```

Otherwise, please carefully observe which fields are optional (e.g. can be `null`) in particular
responses. Some endpoints return `null` responses for sub-model errors without failing
completely, so long as the primary model was successfully (e.g. `quality` in the image model).

## Rate Limiting

Depending on your plan, you may be subject to rate limits between
1 and 5 requests per second.  This limit exists to prevent
abuse of the API. It is not a technical constraint. If you need
a higher limit, please [contact us](mailto:support@aiornot.com).