Path A — Dashboard only (recruiting / ops)
No API key. No terminal.1
Sign in to Assess
Open the Assess dashboard.
2
Create or open an assessment
Add tasks, set time limit and passing score, then set status to Active. Invites fail if the assessment is still a draft.
3
Invite a candidate
Use Invite on that assessment. Enter email and name. Assess can send the email for you.
4
Watch for completion
When they finish, open Results on the assessment. Share the report with the hiring manager from the dashboard.
Path B — Public API (engineers)
Create an API key, list assessments, invite a candidate, and fetch their result.Prerequisites
- Organisation on Starter or above (Free cannot create API keys)
- An owner, admin, or developer role (recruiters cannot mint keys)
- An active assessment (dashboard or Assessments API)
1
Create an API key
Open Assess → Developer → API Keys, create a key, and copy it (shown once). Live keys start with
ct_live_; switch the dashboard to Test to mint ct_test_….Prefer least-privilege scopes. Empty scopes grant full access (legacy).2
Set your environment
3
List assessments
"status": "active". Use its slug in the next step (not the display title).4
Invite a candidate
Safe to retry: same email on the same assessment returns the existing invite. Default Save
send_email is false — set true to have Assess email them.invite_token from the response that is how you look up status and results later.5
Fetch the result
Before they finish you get a short status message. After completion you get scores and pass/fail.In production, prefer webhooks (
assessment.completed) instead of polling.Install an SDK (optional)
Next
Authentication
Keys, scopes, and safe rotation.
Invitations
Bulk invites, reminders, cancel.
Automations
n8n / Zapier without a custom app.
Webhooks
Get notified when candidates finish.