Log your first expense in under a minute

This guide uses a personal API key — if you're setting up an AI agent instead, see Connect an Agent.

Create a key at Settings → API. Give it a name you'll recognize later ("Quick Start", "Muse"), pick read_write, and copy it — the full key is shown once.

curl -X POST https://www.agentcents.com/api/v1/expenses \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer ac_live_YOUR_KEY_HERE" \
  -H "Idempotency-Key: $(uuidgen)" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"amount":6.50,"merchant":"Blue Bottle","category":"coffee"}'

You'll get back a full expense object, including two fields worth noticing right away:

• category_resolved — you sent "coffee" as free text; the API matched it to your Coffee & Cafes category and tells you how confident that match was.
• status — "confirmed" unless this expense was over your review threshold, in which case it is "pending_review" and excluded from your monthly total until you approve it.

Open the dashboard and it is there under Recent expenses, tagged "Added manually" if you used your own key, or with the connection's name if an agent logged it.

What to read next

• Understanding Idempotency — the header you just sent isn't optional
• Setting Categories — how free-text matching actually works
• Connect an Agent — do this instead of a personal key if the goal is an AI agent logging on your behalf