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

# Overview

# Getting Started — Overview

The Cartevo API is designed to be simple, predictable, and standards-compliant. This guide gets you to your first successful call in under five minutes. For the conventions that apply across every endpoint (response envelope, error shape, money/date formats, pagination, idempotency, rate limits), see [API Conventions](/getting-started/conventions).

***

## API basics

* **Architecture:** RESTful, JSON-based
* **Encoding:** UTF-8
* **Base URL:** `https://api.cartevo.co/api/v1`
* **Authentication:** Bearer token in the `Authorization` header (see [Authentication](/getting-started/authentication))

***

## Making your first request

Step 1 — exchange your `client_id` and `client_key` for a short-lived access token:

```http theme={null}
POST https://api.cartevo.co/api/v1/auth/token
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "client_id": "client_abcdef123456",
  "client_key": "secret_xyz789..."
}
```

**Response:**

```json theme={null}
{
  "access_token": "eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9...",
  "token_type": "Bearer",
  "expires_in": 3600
}
```

Step 2 — use the token to call any other endpoint, e.g. listing your wallets:

```http theme={null}
GET https://api.cartevo.co/api/v1/wallets
Authorization: Bearer eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9...
```

Tokens expire after 1 hour. There is no refresh endpoint — call `POST /auth/token` again when needed.

***

## HTTP status codes (summary)

| Code  | Meaning                                       |
| ----- | --------------------------------------------- |
| `200` | Request succeeded                             |
| `201` | Resource created                              |
| `400` | Validation or business-rule error             |
| `401` | Missing, invalid, or expired token            |
| `403` | Authenticated but not authorized              |
| `404` | Resource not found                            |
| `409` | Conflict (e.g. duplicate)                     |
| `429` | Rate limit exceeded                           |
| `5xx` | Server error — retry with exponential backoff |

For full retry guidance and the standard error envelope, see [API Conventions → Errors](/getting-started/conventions#errors).

***

## Next steps

* **[API Conventions](/getting-started/conventions)** — the cross-cutting rules every endpoint follows.
* **[Authentication](/getting-started/authentication)** — token lifetime, scope, and security.
* **[Environments](/getting-started/environment)** — preproduction vs. production limits.
* **[Webhooks](/api-reference/endpoint/webhook)** — receive events asynchronously instead of polling.