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title: Quickstart description: Sign up, create an upstream, and make your first proxied request in under two minutes. group: Getting Started order: 2

Quickstart

Proxy your first API call through GuardProxy in three steps. You'll need an API key for any REST API — this guide uses httpbin (a public request-inspection service) so you can follow along without a real vendor account.

1. Create an account

Start a free 14-day trial — no credit card required. Sign in with a magic link or an email and password.

2. Add an upstream

An upstream is a third-party API you want to proxy. From the Upstreams page, click New upstream:

Field	Value
Slug	httpbin
Display name	httpbin (test)
Upstream URL	https://httpbin.org
Blocked methods	POST, PUT, PATCH, DELETE (the defaults)

Save it. You'll get a proxy endpoint that looks like:

https://{your-customer-slug}.guardproxy.dev/httpbin

3. Make a request

Point your existing client at the proxy endpoint instead of the real API. Everything else — the path, the API key, the headers — stays the same.

# Read passes through (upstream response)
curl https://{your-slug}.guardproxy.dev/httpbin/get?foo=bar

# Write is blocked by the proxy (403 method_blocked)
curl -X POST https://{your-slug}.guardproxy.dev/httpbin/post -d '{"x":1}'

{
  "error": {
    "code": "method_blocked",
    "message": "POST is blocked on this upstream"
  }
}

That's it. Your API key just became read-only.

Verify in the dashboard

Open Block Logs in the dashboard. The blocked POST appears within a second or two, showing the method, path, and block reason. Reads are counted in your usage stats but not individually logged.

Next steps

• Understand the proxy URL structure before integrating a real API.
• Configure blocked methods and path allowlists for GraphQL and POST-as-read endpoints.
• Give the dashboard REST API to your agents and tooling.