Request and response
Every conversation with an API has two parts: what you ask for and what you get back.
Explained simply
What is an API?
An API is a “door” through which one program asks another program for something and gets an answer, without knowing how the other one works inside. Below it is explained step by step, without technical terms.
An analogy
Think of a restaurant
You sit at a table and choose from the menu. You do not walk into the kitchen: you tell the waiter what you want, and the waiter brings the food. The waiter is the API.
Youyour app
The waiterthe API
The kitchenthe service that does the work
The menu is the list of what you can ask for. At Lumos API the menu has operations such as “calculate a sole proprietor’s taxes” or “check whether a message is a scam”.
Step by step
What happens when you use an API
The app sends a request
For example: “how much does a sole proprietor (PFA) keep from an income of 120,000 lei and expenses of 30,000 lei?”
The API checks who you are
The request carries a key, like an access card. Without a key, or without credits, the request does not go through.
The service does the work
The calculation is done on our side, with up-to-date tax rules. Your app does not need to know them.
The answer comes back
The app receives the result (28,035 lei in taxes, 61,965 lei left) and shows it to the user.
The request and the response, in brief
→ POST /v1/taxaro/calculations
{ "form": "pfa_real", "annual_income": 120000, "expenses": 30000 }
← { "total_taxes": 28035, "net_take_home": 61965 }The figures are calculated by TaxaRO. The full example is on the home page.
Words
The words you will hear
There are only a few. Each has a one-sentence explanation.
Address (endpoint)
Where you send the request. Each address does one thing, for example “calculate the taxes”.
API key
A long password, yours alone, that shows who is making the request. It is kept secret.
JSON
The format the data travels in: plain text, with names and values, that any program understands.
Credit
The unit you pay in at Lumos API. Each operation costs a fixed number of credits.
MCP
A kind of API made for AI assistants: an assistant, such as Claude, can ask for what it needs by itself.
Why
Why use an API
Always up to date
Rules and data change. With an API you redo nothing: the answer comes with today’s rules.
You do not redo the work
The heavy calculations and checks are already done and tested. You ask for them instead of writing them again.
It all runs by itself
Your program asks for the answer when it needs it, without anyone opening a website and copying figures.
Examples
What you could do with Lumos API
- an accounting program that shows a client’s taxes by itself;
- an app that warns people when they receive a scam message;
- a consultant who quickly finds funding programs that fit a company;
- an AI assistant that answers with real figures, not invented ones.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Do I need to know how to code?
Usually a developer connects the API to your app. If you only need the results, you find them free on the Lumos websites, for example on TaxaRO. Later you will also be able to use the services from an AI assistant, without writing code.
How much does it cost?
You pay in credits that you buy in advance, and you get a few free ones every month. The price of a credit has not been set yet.
What happens to my data?
We do not save the content of your requests. We keep only who made the call, which operation it was, what it cost and how long it took.
How reliable are the results?
They are indicative: they do not replace an accountant, a lawyer or a consultant. Every response shows which rules it used and how recent the data is.
Is it available already?
Not yet. Lumos API is in preparation; you can join the waiting list and we will write to you once, when it opens.
Want to know when it opens?
Leave us your email address and we will let you know when you can start.