Getting Started

Setting up the Materials Project API client.

The MPRester is a Python client provided by the Materials Project for easily accessing data through its API. It can be found in the mp-api package, which can be installed most easily using pip:

pip install mp_api

As an alternative, the package can also be installed from its code repository:

git clone https://github.com/materialsproject/api
cd api
pip install -e .

An API key is needed in order to use the client. This is a unique key provided to each Materials Project account. Your API key can be found on your profile dashboard page or the main API page once logged in.

The MPRester client can then be imported and instantiated. It is preferred to use Python's with context manager for session management:

from mp_api.client import MPRester

# Option 1: Pass your API key directly as an argument.
with MPRester("your_api_key_here") as mpr:
    # do stuff with mpr...

# Option 2: Use the `MP_API_KEY` environment variable:
# export MP_API_KEY="your_api_key_here"
# Note: You can also configure your API key through pymatgen
with MPRester() as mpr:

See the following sections for details on how to query different types of data. Documentation for MPRester's classes and methods can be found here.