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The Core API uses HTTP Basic Authentication with your name.com API credentials. You can either use cURL’s convenient -u shorthand or provide the explicit Authorization header.
Using -u username:token is equivalent to sending Authorization: Basic <base64(username:token)>.

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Quick Example

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Understanding Basic Authentication Examples

You may notice some examples show the explicit Authorization: Basic <encoded-value> header. This is functionally identical to the simpler cURL shorthand:
The server requires the header format; the -u flag tells curl to automatically create and Base64-encode your <username>:<API-token> string. If you need to manually generate the required Base64 <encoded-value> for use in another tool (or to copy into examples):
  1. Combine your credentials: <username>:<API-token> (e.g., janedoe:tok_12345)
  2. Encode the string using one of the following methods:
Once you have the encoded value, you can use it with an explicit header:

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Sandbox vs Production

Use your sandbox credentials for the development environment (https://api.dev.name.com) and production credentials for https://api.name.com.
If your account has 2FA enabled, enable API Access in Account Settings → Security. Always keep tokens secure and never commit them to source control.