Getting Started with spike.land: From Signup to Your First AI Tool Call

Before You Start

You need two things:

1. Node.js 18+ — check with node -v
2. A spike.land account — sign up here, free, no credit card

That is it. spike-cli is the main interface. Everything else — auth, tool discovery, routing across servers — happens through it.

Step 1: Create Your Account

Go to spike.land/login.

You can sign up with:

• GitHub (recommended for developers)
• Google
• Email + password

After signup you land in the dashboard. Your free-tier account is active immediately.

What the free tier includes:

• 50 credits/day
• Access to all free-tier tools (a subset of the full 80+)
• Community support
• BYOK (bring your own API keys) for model-backed tools

No time limit. The free tier does not expire.

Step 2: Explore the Dashboard

The dashboard has four main sections.

Tools Store

Browse all 80+ tools organized by category: Chess, Image Studio, Codespace, QA Studio, Utilities. Each tool card shows:

• Tool name and description
• Tier (Free / Pro / Business)
• Credit cost per call
• Input/output schema

Click any tool to see its full documentation, example inputs, and sample responses. You can test tools directly in the browser before installing anything.

Credits

Your current credit balance, daily usage, and transaction history. On the free tier, your 50 daily credits reset at midnight UTC.

API Keys

Where you add external API keys (OpenAI, Anthropic, Replicate) and manage your spike.land proxy credit settings. More on this in Step 4.

Team (Business only)

Invite team members, assign roles, share API key pools, and manage tool access by member.

Step 3: Install spike-cli and Connect

spike-cli is an MCP multiplexer — one shell that connects your AI agent to spike.land and any other MCP server you configure.

Quick start (Claude Code)

claude mcp add spike-land --transport http https://spike.land/mcp

This adds spike.land as an MCP server in Claude Code. You are connected to all spike.land tools immediately.

Alternative: Interactive CLI

npx @spike-land-ai/spike-cli shell

This downloads and runs spike-cli, authenticates you, and opens an interactive shell.

Global install (recommended)

npm install -g @spike-land-ai/spike-cli
spike auth login
spike shell

spike auth login opens a browser for OAuth. Approve, and your credentials are stored locally. You only do this once.

Verify the connection

Inside the shell:

spike> servers
  SERVER        STATUS    TOOLS
  spike-land    online    80

spike> toolsets
  TOOLSET      TOOLS   STATUS
  chess           6    available
  codespace       5    available
  image-studio   42    available
  qa-studio       8    available
  utilities      13    available

You are connected. The toolsets are not loaded yet — spike-cli uses lazy loading to keep context small. Load what you need.

spike> load chess
  ✓ Loaded toolset "chess" (6 tools from spike-land)

spike> tools chess
  spike-land__chess_new_game
  spike-land__chess_send_challenge
  spike-land__chess_make_move
  spike-land__chess_get_board
  spike-land__chess_get_elo
  spike-land__chess_resign

Make your first tool call

spike> call spike-land__chess_new_game {"timeControl": "5+0"}
  game created (g_3k9xm1), playing as white, waiting for opponent
  time control: 5 minutes + 0 increment
  game URL: https://spike.land/chess/g_3k9xm1

You just called your first MCP tool.

Step 4: Configure API Keys

Some tools call AI models internally — image analysis, code explanation, content generation. You can either bring your own API keys or use spike.land proxy credits.

Bring Your Own Keys (BYOK)

Go to Dashboard > API Keys and add your keys:

Once added, tool calls route through your keys automatically. You pay the provider directly. spike.land does not see your API costs.

Why BYOK?

• Full control over your model spend
• Use your existing provider credits and rate limits
• No markup — you pay the provider’s published rates

Spike.land Proxy Credits

Prefer consolidated billing? Use proxy credits instead.

1. Go to Dashboard > Credits
2. Click Buy Credits — $0.10 per credit, minimum 100 credits ($10)
3. Select Use Proxy in the API Keys section

Model calls deduct from your credit balance instead of hitting a provider key. One line item on your spike.land invoice covers everything.

Free and Pro tier users: credits roll over monthly, up to a 2× cap. Business users have unlimited credits — no cap, no rollover needed.

Step 5: Explore Tools in the Store

The store is the best way to discover what spike.land can do.

Browsing by category

spike> toolsets
  TOOLSET        TOOLS   STATUS
  chess              6   available
  image-studio      42   available
  codespace          5   available
  qa-studio          8   available
  utilities         13   available

Load a category, list its tools, read the descriptions. The tool descriptions are written for AI agents to understand — but they read well for humans too.

Testing a tool in the browser

Every tool card in the dashboard has a Try it panel. Enter input values, click Run, and see the raw response. Good for understanding what a tool returns before building a workflow around it.

Finding tools by capability

Not sure which tool does what you need? Use the search bar in the store. Search for “image” and you get 42 results. Search for “chess elo” and you get chess_get_elo. Search for “screenshot” and you get the QA Studio capture tools.

Reading a tool’s schema

Click any tool to see:

Tool: chess_make_move
Tier: Free
Credits: 0 (no model call)

Input:
  game_id: string  — ID of the game to move in
  move: string     — Move in UCI notation (e.g. "e2e4")

Output:
  move: string     — The move played
  fen: string      — Board state after move
  result: string   — "ongoing" | "white_wins" | "black_wins" | "draw"
  narrative: string — Plain English description of the position

The schema is the source of truth. What you see here is exactly what spike-cli sends to the tool and what comes back.

Step 6: Connect to Your AI Agent

spike-cli works with any MCP-compatible AI client. The most common setups:

Claude Code

Add spike-land to your .mcp.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "spike-land": {
      "type": "url",
      "url": "https://spike.land/api/mcp",
      "headers": {
        "Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_API_KEY"
      }
    }
  }
}

Find your API key at Dashboard > API Keys > MCP Access Token.

spike-cli as a bridge

If you want spike-cli’s lazy toolset loading and multiplexing on top of Claude Code:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "spike": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "spike",
      "args": ["mcp", "--servers", "spike-land"]
    }
  }
}

spike-cli handles auth, namespacing, and routing. Your AI client sees a single, flat tool list with spike-land__ prefixes.

Custom agents

For agents built with the Anthropic SDK, OpenAI Assistants, or any framework that supports tool calling, use the HTTP endpoint directly:

POST https://spike.land/api/mcp
Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "method": "tools/call",
  "params": {
    "name": "chess_new_game",
    "arguments": { "timeControl": "5+0" }
  }
}

Full API reference at spike.land/docs/api.

Step 7: Upgrade to Pro or Business

The free tier is real — it does not expire and it covers the full free-tier tool catalog. But if you hit the 50 credits/day ceiling or need premium tools, upgrading takes 30 seconds.

When to upgrade to Pro ($29/mo)

• You are hitting the daily credit limit
• You need image studio tools (most are Pro-tier)
• You want priority support
• You are building something you plan to ship

When to upgrade to Business ($99/mo)

• You have a team sharing API keys or tool access
• You need unlimited credits for production workloads
• You need audit logs for compliance
• You are building a product on top of spike.land

How to upgrade

1. Go to Dashboard > Billing
2. Click Upgrade
3. Choose Pro or Business
4. Enter payment details (card or invoice for Business)

Upgrades are immediate. Credits apply to your account the same minute.

Annual discount: both plans are available at a 20% discount with annual billing — Pro at $278/year ($23.17/mo effective), Business at $950/year ($79.17/mo effective).

What’s Next

You are set up. Here is where to go from here:

Read the MCP explainer — MCP Explained: The Universal Adapter for AI Tools covers how the protocol works and why we built on it.

Browse the full tool catalog — spike.land/store has every tool with live documentation.

Build your first workflow — The developer docs have worked examples for common use cases: image pipelines, code analysis agents, chess bots.

Migrating from Next.js? — The migration service explains the method and what the tiers cover.

Publish a tool — If you have an MCP tool you want to monetize, apply for the marketplace. We take 30%, you keep 70%.

Join the community — Discord for questions, feedback, and early previews of what’s coming next.

Troubleshooting

spike auth login opens a browser but nothing happens Make sure port 9876 is not blocked by a firewall. spike-cli uses a local redirect for OAuth. If blocked, run spike auth login --manual and paste the token directly.

Tool call returns “insufficient credits” You have hit your daily limit. Credits reset at midnight UTC. Upgrade to Pro for 500/day or Business for unlimited.

BYOK key not being used Check that the key is active in Dashboard > API Keys and that the toggle next to it is enabled. Inactive keys are stored but not used.

npx is slow on first run The first npx @spike-land-ai/spike-cli shell download takes 10-20 seconds. Subsequent runs use the cache. Install globally to skip this: npm install -g @spike-land-ai/spike-cli.

Questions? Discord is the fastest way to reach the team. Issues can be filed at github.com/spike-land-ai.