In the companion profile I walked the 0x API footprint from the outside. This video does the opposite — it gets hands-on and goes all the way from a cold signup to a working curl call against the Swap API, narrating the real friction along the way.
I do these onboarding runs as a real first-time developer would — no shortcuts — because the gap between “the docs say” and “what actually happens when you sign up” is where developer experience lives or dies.
The path to an API key
The whole flow runs through the 0x dashboard, and it’s refreshingly short:
- Create an account at dashboard.0x.org/create-account — name, email, password.
- Verify your email. (Heads up: the first verification link expired on me, so I had to re-send — a small bump worth knowing about.)
- Answer the onboarding questions — what you build, your role, how you heard about 0x.
- Select a plan. I went with the standard tier to get started.
- Create an app and enable the services you need — Swap, Gasless, Trade Analytics, Cross-Chain, Solana. The API key is scoped to the app.
- Copy your API key. One unified key works across all of the 0x products.
The first call
With the key in hand, the dashboard hands you a ready-to-run request, and the docs back it up with a downloadable OpenAPI 3.1 spec for every API — no key required just to read the contract. I pulled a Swap price, dropped my key into the header, and ran it:
curl --location --request GET 'https://api.0x.org/swap/permit2/quote?chainId=1&sellToken=0xeeee...eeee&buyToken=0x...' \
--header '0x-api-key: YOUR_API_KEY' \
--header '0x-version: v2'
And that was it — a response came back, the first “hello world” swap quote. We’re onboarded and active.
Why this is a good onboarding
A few things stood out as I ran it:
- One key, all products. No per-API credential sprawl — the same key calls Swap, Gasless, and the rest.
- The spec is open. You can download the full OpenAPI for every API without an account, so you can evaluate the contract before you ever sign up.
- Free tier to start. The free tier runs around 5 requests per second — enough to build and test against before you talk about a custom plan.
The one rough edge was the expired verification link on the first attempt. Everything after that was clean.
Dig into the details
- Provider profile + all five APIs: apis.io/providers/0x
- Open provider data (OpenAPI, rules, examples): github.com/api-evangelist/0x
- Watch the profile first: Profiling 0x — Five APIs Behind the DEX Aggregation Layer
More provider profile-and-onboard pairs are coming on YouTube @APISearch.