# Quick Start Guide

### **Before you begin**

Firstly, follow the guide for [Onboarding](/home/connect/fundamentals/authentication.md) to ensure that you have a valid certificate and other preconditions in place. This guide will walk you through the basics of certificates and authentication and getting up the connection.

***

### Verifying your connection and Heartbeat request

When your certificates are set up your are ready to send your first API request! Our Heartbeat service helps you to verity that you actually have the connection up and ready to go!

For simplicity, the following request is made using cURL.

#### Request

{% code overflow="wrap" %}

```bash
curl -k -H "Client-Code: 01234567" -H "Client-Country: GB" https://connect.development.lhv.com/heartbeat --cert <path_to_certificate> --key <path_to_certificate_key> 
```

{% endcode %}

{% hint style="warning" %}
The -k flag allows curl to perform insecure SSL connections and transfers. It ignores SSL certificate validation errors. It's should only be used for testing purposes like in this guide
{% endhint %}

#### Response

```xml
<HeartBeatResponse>
    <TimeStamp>2023-12-19T12:13:49.341+00:00</TimeStamp>
</HeartBeatResponse>
```

***

### Your first Account Info request and response

Now it is time to execute your first API request providing access to your accounts and financial services.

* Please familiarize with the chapter about the [Messaging Pattern](/home/connect/fundamentals/messaging.md)
* As a first business service we recommend [Account Balance](/home/connect/services/account-reports/account-balance.md). It is one of the simplest services that provides any information about your payment accounts.

***

### Explore and integrate other services

Now that you have verified a request/response cycle with the Connect API, it is time to proceed further and explore our other services at [Service Catalogue](/home/connect/services.md)


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# Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation

If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question.

Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter:

```
GET https://docs.lhv.com/home/connect/quick-start-guide.md?ask=<question>
```

The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language.
The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation.

Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.