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Six steps take you from nothing to a resting limit order and its fill on staging. Run against staging (https://staging.zerolatencylabs.com); Environments has the base URLs. There is no testnet faucet. No self-serve route mints test collateral, and spot deposit and withdraw are not yet available. On staging, test collateral is provisioned out of band, so arrange it before Step 3.

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Two credential types

Every step uses one of two credentials. Do not confuse them.
  • Header credential — a header (X-API-KEY) on a plain JSON request. Used for reads and a few writes. Runs directly in the playground.
  • Signed body — a Base64SignedPayload envelope ({payload, signature, public_key}) carrying a packed binary body signed with a session key. The playground cannot sign, so these are documentation-only: read the shape, then sign and send from your own client.
StepEndpointCredentialPlayground
1POST /api/v1/auth/accountsmaster-key signed bodydoc-only
2POST /api/v1/api-keysSessionSig header triple (signed)doc-only
3POST /api/v1/trading/depositsession-key signed bodydoc-only
4PUT /api/v1/leverageX-API-KEY headerusable
5POST /api/v1/trading/order/place/limitsession-key signed bodydoc-only
6GET /api/v1/fillsX-API-KEY headerusable

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Walkthrough

1

Create an account

POST /api/v1/auth/accounts. The body is a signed payload over a CreateSecp256k1Account or CreatePasskeyAccount request, signed by your master key. This one call creates the account and registers an initial session key, so no separate session call is needed for the first trade.Read success, session_created, and account_id from the CreateAccountResponse body, not the status code — a 200 can still be a failure.Accounts, subaccounts, and portfolios covers the account_id, subaccount_index, and portfolio_index you reference below, and the key hierarchy behind the master key. Subaccount index 0 and portfolio index 0 are the defaults created with the account.
2

Mint an API key for reads

POST /api/v1/api-keys. Authenticate with the SessionSig header triple (X-PUBLIC-KEY, X-SIGNATURE, X-REQUEST-ID) — see session signatures. The request (CreateApiKeyRequest) takes account_id, key_name, and an optional subaccount_index (null scopes the key to the whole account).The response (CreateApiKeyResponse) returns the raw api_key once. Store it. You will pass it as the X-API-KEY header for the read steps below. For the full set of read credentials, see read credentials.
3

Deposit collateral

POST /api/v1/trading/deposit. The body is a signed payload over a DepositCash request. DepositCash carries the portfolio_id triple and a size.Collateral is USDC. The size field is an integer in centi-cents (1e-4 USDC), so 1,000 USDC is 10000000. Collateral and cash covers the cash unit and the deposit, withdraw, and transfer paths.The response is a RequestAck with a status field. Read it — the request can be acknowledged or rejected here.There is no deposit faucet on staging, and DepositSpot returns 400 because spot is not yet available. Test collateral is provisioned out of band.
4

Set leverage (optional)

PUT /api/v1/leverage. This is a plain JSON write authenticated with the X-API-KEY header, so it runs in the playground.The request (SetLeverageRequest) takes subaccount_index, portfolio_index, market (for example BTC-PERP), and leverage (an integer multiplier per market). Leverage is set per portfolio per market. See positions, leverage, and funding for how leverage relates to margin requirements.
5

Place a limit order

POST /api/v1/trading/order/place/limit. The body is a signed payload over a PlaceLimitOrder, signed by your session key.PlaceLimitOrder fields:
  • portfolio_id — the {account_id, subaccount_index, portfolio_index} triple.
  • price — a raw integer PriceOfAtom (the price of one atom, in 1e-16 USDC).
  • quantity — a raw signed integer in atoms. The sign is the side: positive is long/buy, negative is short/sell.
  • flags — expiry encodes time-in-force (0 = IOC, 1 = FOK, the maximum u64 value = GTC, any other value = a GTT expiry in nanoseconds since the Unix epoch), plus post_only and reduce_only. See orders and time-in-force.
  • asset — the asset id (BTC is 0, ETH is 1).
Prices and sizes are raw integers, never decimals. Build them from the human value yourself by multiplying and flooring. Align prices to the market tick and sizes to the step before you submit — the exchange truncates toward zero rather than rounding to your nearest tick, so a misaligned order is rejected or silently altered. Markets, assets, and precision lists the per-asset scales and the tick, step, and minimum sizes.Worked example — buy 0.5 BTC at 50,000 USDC. BTC has 100,000,000 atoms per whole unit, so the price conversion factor is 1e12 / 1e8 = 10,000.
  • price: 50,000 USDC is 500,000,000 centi-cents; times 10,000 gives 5000000000000.
  • quantity: 0.5 BTC times 100,000,000 atoms is 50000000. Buy, so it stays positive.
  • asset: 0 (BTC).
The decoded body, before signing:
{
  "portfolio_id": { "account_id": 1, "subaccount_index": 0, "portfolio_index": 0 },
  "price": 5000000000000,
  "quantity": 50000000,
  "flags": { "expiry": 0, "post_only": 0, "reduce_only": 0 },
  "asset": 0
}
Here expiry: 0 is IOC. For a resting order use the maximum u64 value (GTC).The response is a RequestAck. A rejection — an invalid price or insufficient margin — comes back as 200 with a rejecting status, so always read the body (see the error model).Only LIMIT and MARKET orders are placeable. Market orders use POST /api/v1/trading/order/place/market with PlaceMarketOrder (a signed quantity, an asset, and a max_slippage_deci_bps; no price). Conditional orders (stop, take-profit) have no endpoint yet. Self-trade-prevention is accepted on the wire but not yet enforced.
6

Read the fill

GET /api/v1/fills. A plain JSON read authenticated with the X-API-KEY header from Step 2, so it runs in the playground. subaccount_index is required; portfolio_index, limit (1–1000, default 100), and offset are optional.The response is an array of FillResponse. Each fill carries the portfolio_id, market, side (LONG/SHORT), the request_id that links it to your order, and quantity, price, and fee as decimal strings in human units.
To sign the writes above from your own client, see signed payloads for the envelope and byte layout.