Run the Quickstart
A guide to get started building with Plaid
Introduction
You’ll be using both your app’s server and client to add Plaid to your app. Here is an overview of how you’ll be using Plaid.

/link/token/create
to create a link_token
and pass the temporary token to your app's client.
link_token
to open Link for your user. In the onSuccess
callback, Link will provide a temporary public_token
.
/item/public_token/exchange
to exchange the public_token
for a permanent access_token
and item_id
for the new Item
.
access_token
and use it to make product requests for your user's Item
.
Run the Quickstart app
Let’s test out running Plaid locally by cloning the Quickstart app. You’ll need API keys, which you can receive by signing up in the Dashboard. If you want to get started adding Plaid to an exsiting codebase, you can jump ahead to Adding Transactions to your app.
You’ll be running the web Quickstart which showcases the server and client-side pieces to a Plaid integration.
1# Note: If on Windows, run2# git clone -c core.symlinks=true https://github.com/plaid/quickstart3# instead to ensure correct symlink behavior45git clone https://github.com/plaid/quickstart.git6cd quickstart/node78# Copy the .env.example file to .env, then fill9# out PLAID_CLIENT_ID and PLAID_SECRET in .env10cp .env.example .env1112# Install dependencies13npm install1415# Start the backend app16./start.sh
Now that you have the Quickstart running, you’ll add your first Item in the Sandbox environment. Once you’ve opened the Quickstart app on localhost, open Link and select any institution. Use the Sandbox credentials to simulate a successful login.
Sandbox credentials
1username: user_good2password: pass_good
Great! Once you’ve successfully added an Item, the Quickstart allows you to simulate product requests. We’ve started the app with transactions
, so only the Transactions product requests will work. Try adding other products to the run script with PLAID_PRODUCTS=auth,transactions,balance
to test them out.
Congrats! You’re all ready to dive right in to adding Transactions to an existing app.