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Getting started

The fastest path from nothing to a resting order on the staging venue. You only need curl. Base URL for every example: https://api.staging.sphx.io.

Staging venue

Staging is a live, always-on demo venue with simulated flow. Accounts created here receive a starter balance automatically; funds and fills are not real.

1. Create an account​

Sign up with an email and password. The response includes your account and a session token; staging seeds every new account with a starter balance, credited straight to the margin sub-account.

curl -X POST https://api.staging.sphx.io/v1/auth/signup \
  -H 'content-type: application/json' \
  -d '{"email": "you@example.com", "password": "your_long_passphrase_here"}'

For programmatic trading you'll want an API key rather than a session:

curl -X POST https://api.staging.sphx.io/v1/credentials \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SPHINX_TOKEN" \
  -H 'content-type: application/json' \
  -d '{"label": "my-bot"}'

The plaintext_key in the response is shown exactly once — store it. See Authentication for the credential model.

2. Look at the market​

Instruments, books, and candles are public — no auth required.

# What's listed?
curl https://api.staging.sphx.io/v1/instruments

# The order book for one instrument.
curl https://api.staging.sphx.io/v1/instruments/1000/orderbook

# Recent candles (1m/5m/15m/1h/1d).
curl "https://api.staging.sphx.io/v1/instruments/1000/candles?resolution=5m"

3. Place an order​

Orders are priced in integer pips and sized in whole contracts. A limit buy:

curl -X POST https://api.staging.sphx.io/v1/orders \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SPHINX_TOKEN" \
  -H 'content-type: application/json' \
  -d '{
    "instrument_id": 1000,
    "sub_account_id": 1,
    "side": "buy",
    "type": "limit",
    "price_pips": 3900,
    "count": 1,
    "tif": "gtc"
  }'

Every response arrives in the same envelope with a correlation_id you can quote in support requests.

4. Watch it live​

Fills, book changes, and candle updates stream over a single WebSocket endpoint — see the streaming overview.

wss://api.staging.sphx.io/v1/ws

Private channels need your bearer token on the upgrade request.

Where next​

  • Authentication — credentials, entitlements, account states
  • Conventions — units, timestamps, pagination, the two instrument views
  • Errors — machine-readable codes and retry semantics