Quick Start RPC

Use this page when your goal is simple: get a working Carbium RPC connection fast, confirm that it responds, and only then go deeper into pricing, rate limits, or production setup.

If you already know you need plan details, 429 handling, or key-hardening rules, skip straight to those canonical pages. This page stays intentionally lightweight.

Part of the Carbium Solana infrastructure stack.

The 5-minute path

For most teams, the shortest path to a working integration is:

create an RPC key in the Carbium dashboard
copy your endpoint from the Endpoints page
make one getHealth or getSlot call against https://rpc.carbium.io/?apiKey=YOUR_RPC_KEY
move to the deeper docs only after the basic path works

That sequence avoids a common mistake: reading pricing and architecture pages before you have confirmed that your key, endpoint, and client are wired correctly.

What you need before the first call

You only need three things:

Item	Where it comes from	Notes
RPC key	Get Your API Key	Keep it in a backend env var, not frontend code
RPC endpoint	Get Your Endpoint	Carbium's published JSON-RPC pattern is `https://rpc.carbium.io/?apiKey=...`
One test method	Any standard Solana JSON-RPC method	`getHealth` is the simplest smoke test

If you want the browser-dashboard testing flow instead of curl or code, go to Your First Test Call.

First call: copy-paste smoke test

Run one simple JSON-RPC request before you wire in a full SDK:

curl -X POST "https://rpc.carbium.io/?apiKey=$CARBIUM_RPC_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "jsonrpc": "2.0",
    "id": 1,
    "method": "getHealth",
    "params": []
  }'

If the endpoint and key are set up correctly, you should get a JSON-RPC success response back. After that, the integration problem shifts from setup to normal application code.

Minimal TypeScript version

import { Connection } from "@solana/web3.js";

const connection = new Connection(
  `https://rpc.carbium.io/?apiKey=${process.env.CARBIUM_RPC_KEY}`,
  "confirmed"
);

const health = await connection.getHealth();
console.log(health);

Use this once, then move to the method your app actually needs, such as getBalance, getAccountInfo, getLatestBlockhash, or transaction submission.

What this page does not try to solve

This entry page is only about getting connected. Use the deeper pages for the next real question:

If your next question is...	Go here
Which plan fits my workload?	RPC Pricing and Usage Tiers
Why am I seeing `429 Too Many Requests`?	Solana RPC Rate Limits Explained
How should I store and restrict my key?	API Key Security Best Practices
How do I test more methods without writing code first?	Your First Test Call

That keeps this page a true entry point instead of turning it into a second pricing, security, or troubleshooting page.

Production notes to remember early

Even for a quick start, these three rules matter:

keep the RPC key server-side whenever possible
restrict the endpoint by trusted domain or IP in the Carbium dashboard
if your design depends on gRPC streaming, validate that path and plan early because gRPC starts at the Business tier in Carbium's published pricing docs

📘
Quick starts should lower friction, not pretend production concerns do not exist. Get one call working first, then move into pricing, rate limits, and key hardening before live traffic.

🔶
Ready to make the first Solana RPC call? Start with Carbium setup at carbium.io, then copy your endpoint into the smoke test above.