Quick Tutorial

How to place an order within 5 minutes

Learn how to authenticate, sign, and send your first trading order using the Flipster API — all within five minutes.

Step 1. Get Your API Key

Before making any private requests, generate an API key from your Flipster account page. Each key contains a public key (api-key) and a secret key (used for HMAC signing).

Step 2. Set Up Authentication

Every private request must be signed using HMAC-based authentication. Include the following headers in each request:

api-key: <your_api_key>
api-expires: <unix_timestamp_of_expiration>
api-signature: <HMAC_SHA256_signature>

Generating an API Signature

Python

import hmac
import hashlib
from urllib.parse import urlparse

def generate_api_key_signature(
    secret: str,
    method: str,
    url: str,
    expires: int,
    data: bytes | None = None,
) -> str:
    """
    Generate an HMAC-SHA256 signature for Flipster API requests.

    Args:
        secret: Your API secret key.
        method: HTTP method (e.g., 'POST', 'GET').
        url: Full request URL including query parameters.
        expires: Unix timestamp (in seconds) when the request expires.
        data: Optional request payload as bytes.

    Returns:
        Hex-encoded HMAC-SHA256 signature string.
    """

    # 1. Normalize URL path and query string
    parsed = urlparse(url)
    path = parsed.path + (f"?{parsed.query}" if parsed.query else "")

    # 2. Build message: method + path + expires + (optional body)
    parts = [
        method.upper().encode("utf-8"),
        path.encode("utf-8"),
        str(expires).encode("utf-8"),
    ]
    if data:
        parts.append(data)
    message = b"".join(parts)

    # 3. Compute HMAC-SHA256 signature
    signature = hmac.new(
        secret.encode("utf-8"),
        message,
        digestmod=hashlib.sha256
    ).hexdigest()

    return signature

Javascript

Step 3. Send a Sample Order

Use the /api/v1/trade/order endpoint to place a market order.

Here’s an example using curl:

curl -X POST "https://<host>/api/v1/trade/order" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "api-key: <your_api_key (starts with 3|)>" \
  -H "api-expires: <unix_timestamp_of_expiration>" \
  -H "api-signature: <HMAC_SHA256_signature>" \
  -d '{
    "symbol": "BTCUSDT.PERP",
    "side": "BUY",
    "type": "MARKET",
    "quantity": "0.01"
  }'

That’s it!

In just a few minutes, you’ve:

• Created an API key

• Signed your request with HMAC

• Placed and verified your first order

You’re now ready to build automated trading workflows with Flipster’s API.