---
name: particle-setup
description: "Find and follow Particle's agent setup playbook: connect over MCP, the REST API, or x402 pay-per-request, and run a first live query against podcast transcripts, guests, sponsors, and the knowledge graph."
---

# Connect to Particle

**The full setup playbook is at https://api.particle.pro/agents.md. Read that first.**
It carries the per-client configuration for Claude, Claude Code, Cursor, VS
Code, Codex, and ChatGPT, the first queries worth running, and the conventions
the API expects. This page is the pointer to it from the apex.

Particle is what is inside podcasts, as an API: every episode transcribed,
diarized, and speaker-identified, linked to a knowledge graph of people,
companies, organizations, and places. `GET https://api.particle.pro/v1/podcasts/stats`
returns the live catalog size and needs no key.

## Three ways in

- **MCP**, when a person is at the keyboard. Server: https://mcp.particle.pro
  Interactive clients sign in with OAuth in the browser, so there is no API
  key to mint.
- **REST**, for scripts, notebooks, and backends. Base URL: https://api.particle.pro, with
  every data endpoint under `/v1/`. Send `X-API-Key: pp_…`. A signed-in
  person creates the key at https://platform.particle.pro/tokens; keys are minted by people,
  not by agents.
- **x402**, with no account and no key. Call a billable endpoint without a
  credential, pay the `402` response's USDC terms on Base, and retry.
  Details: https://docs.particle.pro/x402

## Where else to look

On this host:

- https://particle.pro/llms.txt — what this site publishes
- https://particle.pro/auth.md — how an agent obtains credentials

On the API host and the docs site:

- https://api.particle.pro/llms.txt — every endpoint and MCP tool with its per-call price
- https://docs.particle.pro — full API reference and quickstart