Mint a key and start a meeting with curl

What it does

Two requests: one makes a key, the other starts a meeting that key owns and answers with its code and link. Every other guide starts from these two values.

curl and jq, which most machines already have.

The code

# Mint a key and start a meeting with curl. jq picks the fields out of the answers.
BASE=${MEETFUL_URL:-https://meetful.com}

# 1. A key. It is shown once and kept only as a hash, so save it.
MEETFUL_KEY=$(curl -s -X POST "$BASE/api/keys" \
  -H 'content-type: application/json' \
  -d '{"name":"Notetaker","emoji":"📝"}' | jq -r .key)

# 2. A meeting that key owns. Send the url to the people you are meeting.
curl -s -X POST "$BASE/api/meeting" -H "authorization: Bearer $MEETFUL_KEY" | tee meeting.json
echo
echo "key starts ${MEETFUL_KEY:0:8}…, meeting $(jq -r .code meeting.json)"

Run it

bash start.sh

What it printed

{"code":"qbc-udwf-tri","url":"https://localhost:9560/qbc-udwf-tri"}
key starts tmk_WCJJ…, meeting qbc-udwf-tri

Run on 10 November 2026 against a Meetful server built from the same code as meetful.com, with two people — Dana and Sam — in the meeting saying three lines. Nothing above was edited.

How it works

The key is shown once and stored only as a hash, so the script keeps it in a shell variable and prints only its first characters. Save it somewhere safe if you will use it again.

The answer below shows a localhost address because this ran against a local server; on meetful.com the link is https://meetful.com/ and the code. Anyone can open that link and join, with no account.

What can go wrong

Next

In curl: speak · get the transcript

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