Core concepts

Make a few choices before you open the endpoint reference: the venue and market type, the data type and depth, the time window, how the data reaches you, and the checks the result must pass. Each concept below settles one of those choices.

Concepts and what they decide

Concept	What it decides
Venues and market types	Whether a request belongs to Hyperliquid core, Spot, HIP-3, HIP-4, or Lighter, and which namespace and symbol format it uses
Venue coverage	Whether the exact market and data type are available, and from when
Order book depth	Whether the job needs L2, L3, L4, diffs, order events, or history
Plan a historical pull	Whether the job needs snapshots, history, replay, exports, or backtesting metadata
Replay and reconstruction	Whether event order, local state, or gap handling matters
API keys	How REST, WebSocket, SDK, CLI, MCP, and Agent skill clients pass credentials
Responses and Errors	What to read and log from success and error responses
Rate limits	How fast and how broadly a client can call the API
Credits	What a request costs and how export credits apply
Data quality	Whether a window is fresh and complete enough, and how to treat gaps
Data rights	What a downstream product can do with API output

Choose the venue before the endpoint

Choose the venue and market type before the endpoint. Hyperliquid includes core perpetuals, Spot, HIP-3, and HIP-4. Lighter uses its own API namespace. Do not route a Spot pair through a core perpetual endpoint, strip a HIP-3 builder prefix, or treat HIP-4 probability-like prices as ordinary dollar prices. Then choose the data type: order book, trades, candles, funding, open interest, liquidations, orders, L3, L4, replay, or data quality. Check whether the exact market and time window are covered. Size the request against account capacity and request-window limits separately.

From concepts to a first request

Pick the venue and market type

Choose Hyperliquid or Lighter, then the market type that matches the market identity.

Confirm availability

Use instrument, coverage, or freshness routes before widening to long windows or many symbols.

Choose the interface

Use the REST API for request and response jobs, WebSocket for real-time channels or channel-specific replay, the SDKs for application code, the CLI for shell jobs, the MCP server for MCP-capable hosts, and the Agent skill for reusable agent workflows.

Save trace fields

Store the route, parameters, time window, data-quality result, and any request ID the route returns with every output that another system will trust.

Write these down before broad work starts: the depth and state model the job needs, its capacity rule (request rate, concurrency, credits, standard replay speed, request-window limits, and stop conditions), and the trace fields it keeps (route, parameters, quality decision, cursor, and request ID). When you move to code, the REST API, Endpoint reference, OpenAPI, and WebSocket pages hold the exact contracts.

Next step

Pick the namespace and symbol format for your market in Venues and market types.

Start

Concepts

Plans and limits

Policies

Guides

Concepts and what they decide

Choose the venue before the endpoint

From concepts to a first request

Next step

​Concepts and what they decide

​Choose the venue before the endpoint

​From concepts to a first request

​Next step

Concepts and what they decide

Choose the venue before the endpoint

From concepts to a first request

Next step