> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.compago.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Introduction

> Welcome to the Compago developer documentation.

Compago provides a powerful and secure payments infrastructure designed for merchants, manufacturers, and fintech partners in Mexico. Whether you're building an embedded checkout experience or automating payouts, our API helps you launch faster and with confidence.

## Get started

To get started, you'll first need to authenticate with our backend using your unique API key.
Head over to the [Authentication](/get-started/authentication) section to learn how to generate and use it in your requests.

Build and test in the **Demo** environment, where no money moves, before you go live. [Environments](/get-started/environments) explains how to get a Demo account, a Demo API key and a Demo terminal.

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Authenticate" icon="lock" href="/get-started/authentication">
    Learn how to create your API key and authenticate every API call securely.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Create Your First Payment" icon="credit-card" href="/one-time-payment/create">
    Follow our guide to create a one-time payment using our backend API.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Save Cards & Charge on Demand" icon="vault" href="/payment-method/overview">
    Save customer cards securely and charge them whenever you need to.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Report on Your Business" icon="chart-line" href="/developer/overview">
    Read your payments, subscriptions and catalogue from your own systems.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

## Two API surfaces

Both use the same API key and the same host. They differ in what they are for.

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Accept payments" icon="cart-shopping" href="/one-time-payment/create">
    Take money: hosted checkouts, saved cards, terminals and installments.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Developer API" icon="chart-line" href="/developer/overview">
    Read what happened, under `/api/developer/v1`. Read-only.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

## Before you go live

<CardGroup cols={3}>
  <Card title="Pagination" icon="list" href="/core-concepts/pagination">
    Page through lists without missing or repeating rows.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Rate limits" icon="gauge-high" href="/core-concepts/rate-limits">
    Your per-key budget and how to back off.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Errors" icon="triangle-exclamation" href="/core-concepts/errors">
    Status codes, error codes and what is safe to retry.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

## Learn and Build

Explore the documentation and tailor your integration to your business model.