You need an API key and an application key before you can make a single call. That's two keys, two permissions scopes, and a paid account. Datadog's API is well-documented. The endpoints are clean, the response shapes are consistent, and the SDKs cover every major language. The problem is testing. Two keys before you start To call any Datadog endpoint, you need: A DD-API-KEY — tied to your organization A DD-APPLICATION-KEY — tied to a specific user with specific permissions You can't get either without a Datadog account. Free trials exist, but they require a credit card and install an agent on your infrastructure. If you're building an integration — say, a dashboard that pulls monitors and incidents, or a CI pipeline that posts deployment events — you have to set all of that up before you can test whether your code handles the response correctly.…