Authentication

Choose a plan, then make keys on your account page. A key is lobby_live_ followed by 32 characters. We show it once and keep only a fingerprint of it, so store it like a password: in an environment variable or a secrets manager, never in code a browser can read.

Send it on every request as a bearer token.

curl "https://api.thelobbynews.com/v1/bills/119-hr-1" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer lobby_live_..."

Several keys

An account can hold several keys, for example one per environment or per service. They share the account’s plan, allowance and credit. Revoking a key on your account page stops it within 30 seconds.

What a refused key gets

A malformed or revoked key is answered 401. A key whose account has no live plan is answered 402 with a link to choose one. A request with no key at all is answered 402 too, saying how to get a key or, for an agent, how to pay per request.