Developer quickstart

Load at least $10 of prepaid credit, mint a key, run one priced site check, and read the receipt. A key is a server-side credential. CORS stays off — do not ship it to a browser.

A free account includes 10 site lookups / month, including headless use. A $10 load is 110 checks in month one, then 100 per $10 after that. Each sourced check is $0.10 USD. Uncovered sites return HTTP 202 with charged: false and are not billed.

1. Load credit and mint a key

1. Sign in and open Settings → Developer.
2. Load at least $10 USD.
3. Create a key. Copy the secret once. Prefixes are bk_live_ in production and bk_test_ locally.

export BUCKY_API_KEY='bk_live_…'

2. Four curls

Anonymous coverage is free. The site check is the only priced route.

curl -sS https://buckybuild.com/api/v1/coverage/divisions/toronto-on

curl -sS -i \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $BUCKY_API_KEY" \
  'https://buckybuild.com/api/v1/sites/check?address=100%20Queen%20St%20W,%20Toronto'

Read usage in the JSON body and the receipt headers: X-Bucky-Receipt-Id, X-Bucky-Price-Usd, X-Bucky-Debit-Usd, X-Bucky-Balance-Usd, X-Bucky-Billing-Reason. A 304 still carries those headers. A 402 reports the shortfall without a second round trip.

curl -sS -H "Authorization: Bearer $BUCKY_API_KEY" \
  https://buckybuild.com/api/v1/usage/balance

curl -sS https://buckybuild.com/openapi.json | head

Coverage and OpenAPI are free. Address suggest is also free but needs a UUID sessionToken — skip it here. sites/check is the meter.

3. CLI

The CLI is not on npm. Install the promoted binary, then hit the same coverage route:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/markbucky/bucky/main/apps/bucky-cli/install.sh | sh
bucky coverage get toronto-on

Balance is the same GET /api/v1/usage/balance call as the third curl. Auth for product commands is bucky auth login. See CLI.

Next

• API — priced check, free reads, redaction, CORS, and the 401 taxonomy.
• MCP — agents.
• CLI — install and product commands.