---
title: Quickstart
description: Create a key and make your first search request in under a minute.
order: 1
---

## 1. Create an API key

Sign up and generate a key from the [dashboard](/dashboard) — the first key is created automatically the first time you land on the API Credentials step. Keys look like `dike_live_xxxxxxxx`.

## 2. Make a request

```bash
curl https://api.dike.it.com/v1/search \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $DIKE_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "query": "مسؤولية الناقل الجوي عن تأخير الرحلات",
    "top_k": 5
  }'
```

## 3. Read the response

```json
{
  "results": [
    {
      "canonical_id": "eg-leg-1948-131",
      "score": 0.87,
      "doc_type": "legislation",
      "title": "القانون المدني",
      "article_no": "163",
      "snippet": "...",
      "year": 1948,
      "status": "in_force",
      "citation_string": "المادة 163 من القانون رقم 131 لسنة 1948"
    }
  ],
  "took_ms": 142,
  "fusion": "rrf",
  "reranked": true
}
```

`canonical_id` is the stable join key across every endpoint — pass it to [`/v1/document/{canonical_id}`](/docs/api-reference/document) to fetch the full text, or to [`/v1/graph/traverse`](/docs/api-reference/graph-traverse) to walk its citations.

## Next

- [Authentication](/docs/getting-started/authentication) — key format, header, scoping.
- [Rate limits & errors](/docs/getting-started/rate-limits-errors) — what happens past the limit.
- [Search reference](/docs/api-reference/search) — filters, rerank, pagination behavior.