{/*
SEO beyond what the frontmatter gives us: a canonical URL, Open Graph and
Twitter cards for when this link is shared, and Organization + WebSite
structured data so search engines can attribute the brand rather than guess
at it. Frontmatter only produces and <meta name="description">.
*/}
<Head>
<title>Developer documentation
## Start here
Three steps to your first payment. Nothing to install.
```bash title="Charge a customer"
curl -X POST https://api.kwiknkap.com/v1/payments \
-H "X-API-Key: kn_sk_test_..." \
-H "Idempotency-Key: $(uuidgen)" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{ "amount": 5000, "phone_number": "237670000001", "payment_method": "mobile_money" }'
```
That returns `PENDING`, not paid — the customer approves on their phone, and you hear back by webhook. It is the one idea worth understanding before you write anything else, and it takes two minutes: [How a payment works](/en/concepts/how-payments-work).
- **[Get started](/en/getting-started)** — account, key, first payment, in three steps
- **[Choosing how to collect](/en/collections/overview)** — direct charge, link, invoice or storefront
- **[Build with an AI agent](/en/build-with-ai)** — llms.txt, MCP and prompts that produce correct code
## What the platform does
| | What it gives you |
| --- | --- |
| **Getting paid** | Mobile Money collections, [payment links](/en/products/payment-links), [invoices](/en/products/invoices), [storefronts and event ticketing](/en/products/storefronts) |
| **Knowing who you deal with** | [Identity and business verification](/en/products/kyc), powered by [Kwik ID](/en/products/kwik-id) |
| **Running the business** | [Inventory](/en/products/inventory) tied to what you actually sell, and [Nudle](/en/products/nudle) for restaurants |
| **Keeping what you earn** | [Savings](/en/products/savings) that set aside a share of every collection automatically |
You can run all of it from the dashboard at [app.kwiknkap.com](https://app.kwiknkap.com) without writing code. This documentation is for driving it from your own systems instead.
Money is the part everything else hangs off, so that is where the API started. Mobile Money reaches almost everyone here and cards reach almost nobody, which makes being excellent at MTN MoMo and Orange Money the ground the platform stands on rather than a feature of it.
## What you can build today
| Resource | What you can do |
| --- | --- |
| [Payments](/en/api/direct-payments) | Charge a customer's Mobile Money wallet, then read the outcome |
| [Payment links](/en/api/payment-links) | Create, update, deactivate and delete shareable checkout pages |
| [Invoices](/en/api/invoices) | Raise, publish, send, cancel, and fetch the PDF |
| [Files](/en/api/files) | Upload artwork for links and invoices, straight to storage |
| Webhooks | Be told when money moves, signed and retried for three days |
Seventeen operations, one authentication scheme, one set of [failure codes](/en/concepts/errors).
The rest of the platform — inventory, savings, verification — is live in the dashboard and not yet callable. As it becomes callable it arrives under the same conventions: same key, same idempotency, same error shape. Nothing you write today gets rewritten.
## Base URL
## Authentication
One secret key per environment, sent as `X-API-Key`. The prefix decides which environment you reach: `kn_sk_test_…` is sandbox, `kn_sk_live_…` is live, and no header or account switch overrides it. See [Environments and API keys](/en/concepts/environments-and-keys).
Keys are created in the dashboard under Developers and shown once.
:::tip
`Authorization: Bearer ` and `api-key: ` also work, but `X-API-Key` is canonical. There is no publishable key and no key pair — one secret per environment, which is why it must never reach a browser or a mobile app.
:::
## Amounts
Whole XAF francs, as integers, minimum `100`. No minor units and no multiplier: to charge 25,000 XAF, send `25000`.