Get an API key

Use the pricing section, choose Standard or Pro, and complete checkout. The key is shown once after payment, so save it in your agent's secret manager or environment immediately.

You can also start checkout through the public API. Read the live pricing response instead of hard-coding plan details:

curl https://api.viralquery.com/v1/pricing

curl -X POST https://api.viralquery.com/v1/subscribe \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"plan":"standard","billingInterval":"annual"}'
# → { "url": "https://checkout.stripe.com/...", "claimToken": "claim_..." }

Open the checkout URL, pay, then claim the key:

curl -X POST https://api.viralquery.com/v1/subscribe/claim \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"claimToken":"claim_..."}'
# → { "status": "completed", "apiKey": "sk_viralquery_...",
#     "plan": "viralquery", "billingInterval": "annual" }

Claim within 24 hours of starting checkout. If that capability expires or the key was already shown, use the email recovery flow to issue a new key and invalidate the old one.

Configure the key

Store the key in a secret manager, then inject it into the agent process as VIRALQUERY_API_KEY. Do not type the literal credential into a shell command. The ViralQuery CLI uses the official API by default; for a one-session non-echo fallback, follow CLI auth.

viralquery auth --url https://api.viralquery.com
viralquery getUsage

Verify the protected configuration before running research:

curl https://api.viralquery.com/v1/usage \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $VIRALQUERY_API_KEY"

A 200 response confirms the key works; inspect active and status for subscription state. 401 means the key is missing or invalid. Plan-gated research calls return 402 when the subscription is inactive. Never paste a live key into command history, chat, a URL, or source control.