Getting Started

Make your first API call in 30 seconds. Run a full simulation in 5 minutes.

1 What is this?

Extrinsic Analytics is a quantitative analytics platform for energy and commodity markets. It provides APIs for building forward curves, running Monte Carlo price simulations, calibrating market parameters, and comparing simulation outcomes.

Explore

2 Check the API is running

Open the API Reference. Find GET /v1/health in the sidebar, click Try It.

You should see:

{
    "status": "ok",
    "core_version": "0.1.0",
    "api_version": "v1"
}

The API Reference is interactive documentation for every endpoint. You can test individual calls here, but it only handles one request at a time. To run full simulation workflows (multi-step sequences where each request builds on the last), you need Postman.

3 Understand the domain

Before running a simulation, it helps to know how the pieces fit together. Read the Platform Guide for the full picture. The short version:

Price feeds hold historical data. Forward curves project prices forward. Markets combine feeds and curves. Calibration estimates parameters (volatility, mean reversion, correlation). A model assembles markets and parameters. A simulation runs Monte Carlo on the model. Outputs extract the results.

Build

4 Set up Postman

The API Reference lets you explore individual endpoints. To run full workflows (multi-step sequences that build a simulation from scratch), you need Postman.

1. Download the Postman desktop app (free)
2. Create a free account at postman.com/signup if you don't have one
3. Open Postman and sign in

5 Import collections

Go to the Postman Collections page. Import the environment first (it tells Postman where the API is), then Workflow 1.

1. Click Copy URL next to the environment
2. In Postman, click Import (top left), paste the URL, click Import
3. Back on the collections page, Copy URL for "Workflow 1: Simulation from Scratch"
4. In Postman, Import again, paste, Import
5. Select the Extrinsic Analytics environment from the dropdown (top right of Postman)

6 Run your first simulation

1. Click the three dots next to "Workflow 1" in the sidebar
2. Select Run collection
3. Click Run Workflow 1
4. Watch the requests execute in sequence

The full workflow takes about 5 seconds and shows green passes for each of the 22 steps.

7 What just happened?

Workflow 1 built a complete two-market correlated simulation from scratch:

1. Price feeds and prices: created two market data sources and uploaded historical observations
2. Forward curves: built a forward curve for each market
3. Markets: defined two market objects linking feeds and curves
4. Calibration: estimated volatility, mean reversion, and cross-market correlations
5. Model: assembled everything into a simulation model
6. Simulation: ran Monte Carlo generating correlated price paths
7. Output: extracted price paths from the results

Click individual requests to see request bodies, responses, and test results. The output response includes a Visualize tab showing simulated price paths.

8 More workflows

Import more workflows from the Postman Collections page:

• Workflow 0 (Reset): clears all data for a clean start
• Workflow 2: simulation using existing data (fewer steps)
• Workflow 3: one-call simulation via the orchestration endpoint
• Workflow 4: what-if scenario
• Workflow 5: calibrate with and without event exclusions
• Workflow 6: compare simulations statistically

Integrate

9 Call the API from code

The API is standard REST. Call it from any language. The API Reference generates code snippets for Python, JavaScript, cURL, and more. Click any endpoint, select your language, and copy the code.

import requests

response = requests.get("https://api.extrinsicanalytics.com/v1/health")
print(response.json())