Quickstart

To make your first Atlas Labs write, create a sandbox with one curl call, check its status, read your missions and send a write with an Idempotency-Key: four steps, no sign-up, against a fictional printing company. Every response carries meta.simulation: true.

1. Create a sandbox

No account, no email, no payment. Pick a preset or leave the body empty for starter.

curl -s -X POST https://automationatlas.io/labs/api/v1/sandboxes \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"preset": "starter"}'

The response includes two keys, shown once: a Factory key (lab_fac_…) for production, inventory and shipping, and a Head Office key (lab_off_…) for sales, purchasing, finance and HR. Save both, because there is no way to retrieve them again. If the sandbox is full you get a 202 with a queue ticket instead of the 201 above; poll the path in poll until it returns your keys, as Waiting for a sandbox explains.

2. Check your sandbox's status

Either key works on shared endpoints like this one.

curl -s https://automationatlas.io/labs/api/v1/sandbox \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer lab_off_yourkey"

3. Read your missions

Missions are detected from what actually happened in the sandbox, not from a checkbox you tick. They tell you what to try next.

curl -s https://automationatlas.io/labs/api/v1/missions \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer lab_off_yourkey"

4. Make your first write

Every write accepts an Idempotency-Key header, and the routes that move money or stock (13 of them, listed on Authenticate with your key) refuse a write without one. Send the same key twice with the same body and you get the original response back with Idempotency-Replayed: true; send it twice with a different body and the second call is rejected, so a retried request can never double-charge or double-ship.

curl -s -X POST https://automationatlas.io/labs/api/v1/office/sales-orders/so_01J.../accept \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer lab_off_yourkey" \
  -H "Idempotency-Key: $(uuidgen)"

The response is the sales-order row. Its status is in_production, with bridged_work_order_id set, on the default starter preset (bridge auto), and accepted on a preset with a manual bridge.

Presets

“Automate” names the side or sides you run yourself; an NPC autopilot runs only the other side, and with both there is no NPC. On starter you run the Head Office and the Factory runs itself, so you can focus entirely on the Head Office API. Switch sides at any time with PATCH /labs/api/v1/sandbox.

Limits and next steps

• Sessions last 30 minutes and can be extended twice from the console, up to 90 minutes total.
• A sandbox goes read-only when it ends: for a short grace period its keys can still read, and writes get 423 sandbox_expired. Keys stop working when their sandbox is deleted, at the end of that period: from then on every request with them gets 401 unauthorized. Stop any script still using old keys, and create a new sandbox for fresh ones.
• Requests are rate-limited per key, per IP group, and (without a key) per IP group again; every authenticated response carries X-RateLimit-Limit and X-RateLimit-Remaining, and a 429 carries Retry-After in seconds. Wait that long and resend the same request.
• Read Concepts for how the Factory and Head Office systems connect through the bridge.
• Read Webhooks to get events pushed to you instead of polling.
• Read Integrations for Zapier, Make, n8n, Power Automate, Pipedream, Frends, Moxo and AI-agent (MCP) recipes, and Authenticate with your key for tested curl, JavaScript and Python snippets.