First Success Tutorial#

This page is the shortest copy/paste path for first-time users. Follow the steps below and you should end up with one visible text entry in LabArchives.

Install labapi#

Install labapi with the extras used throughout this tutorial:

uv add "labapi[dotenv,builtin-auth]"

pip install "labapi[dotenv,builtin-auth]"

See Installation for the other install profiles.

Create a .env File#

Create a .env file in your project folder:

API_URL="https://api.labarchives.com"
ACCESS_KEYID="your_access_key"
ACCESS_PWD="your_access_password"

Replace the values with your own LabArchives API credentials.

Run a Minimal Script#

Copy this script into first_success.py. It automatically uses the first notebook in your account.

from datetime import datetime

from labapi import Client, NotebookPage, TextEntry

with Client() as client:
    user = client.default_authenticate()
    notebook_name = next(iter(user.notebooks))
    print(f"Using notebook {notebook_name}")
    notebook = user.notebooks[notebook_name]
    page = notebook.create(
        NotebookPage,
        f"API tutorial - {datetime.now():%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S}",
    )
    page.entries.create(TextEntry, "<p>Hello from labapi!</p>")
    print(f"Created page: {page.path}")

Then run it:

python first_success.py

Confirm the Result#

After the script finishes:

  • You should see a new page in your selected notebook named API tutorial - <timestamp>.

  • Opening that page should show one text entry with the message Hello from labapi!.

If this worked, you have completed a full installation, authentication, and write path.