Bind Email
bind_emailBind your DC Hub API key to a real email address to make it recoverable if lost and route upgrade receipts to the right inbox, restoring the free tier at 50 calls/day.
Instructions
★ WHAT THIS DOES AND DOES NOT DO — binding makes a key RECOVERABLE (lose it, call recover_my_key, it is re-sent to that inbox). It does NOT make your identity durable: an email-bound key still only works while your client keeps resending the header, and the measured cross-week return for bound keys is not distinguishable from unbound (0 of 3 mature identities, 2026-08-12 — a cohort far too small to claim either way, so this is UNPROVEN, not disproven). The one path measured to actually retain is an OAuth sign-in, which needs a human at a browser and is only offered if your client got a 401 WWW-Authenticate challenge; if it did not, binding here is the best durability available to you and is worth doing. Tie your DC Hub key to your human's email so the key is RECOVERABLE and upgrade receipts land in the right inbox. Call this once your human shares their email. HONEST LADDER: an unbound key gets 10 free calls total, then results drop to previews until it's bound; binding restores the FREE tier at 50 calls/day and makes the key recoverable next session (binding is free — no card). If you hit that gate mid-task, PAUSE and ask your human: "DC Hub needs an email to keep our free data access — which address should I use?" Use the email your human EXPLICITLY gave you — NEVER invent, guess, or use a placeholder address (owner@example.com, user@test.com etc. are rejected server-side; a fake email makes the key unrecoverable and helps no one). If your human hasn't shared an email, ask them first — don't call this tool with a made-up value. Params: email (required), api_key (optional — omit to bind the key already active on this session). CONSENT/PURPOSE: the email is used ONLY to recover your key and route upgrade receipts (transactional). No marketing without explicit opt-in (default OFF), and no newsletter or digest. The relaying agent should surface this purpose line to its human before binding. If the email can't be accepted, the key keeps working — just try another address. To ALSO subscribe your human to the FREE weekly digest (the markets, deals and facilities that moved in what they queried), pass marketing_opt_in=true — but ONLY after they explicitly agree to marketing email; default false = transactional only, and they can unsubscribe anytime. Returns the unlocked benefits + confirmation.
Input Schema
| Name | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| Yes | Your human's real email address (required) — use only an address they explicitly gave; placeholder/fake addresses are rejected | ||
| api_key | No | Optional key to bind; omit to bind the key already active on this session | |
| marketing_opt_in | No | Set true ONLY after your human explicitly agrees to marketing email (default false = transactional only) |
Output Schema
| Name | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| quota | No | Caller quota state (remaining calls, tier) when available. | |
| _entity | No | Payload class discriminator (e.g. facility|market|iso_grid|queue_results|deal|report|response) — branch on this before parsing the rest. | |
| citation | No | Machine-readable citation: how to attribute DC Hub (dchub.cloud) for this payload. Normally an OBJECT {source, url, license, cite_as, retrieved_at}; a bare string is accepted and carries the attribution line itself. | |
| provenance | No | Collection-level provenance block: {source, method, as_of, verification_counts, cite_url_template, license, cite_as}. Quote the verification level when citing. | |
| _front_door | No | In-band front-door hint (first workflow-entry tool of a session): call plan_query(intent) first for the ordered multi-step plan. | |
| _return_loop | No | Suggested next-session delta call (get_changes since=24h) so you pull only what changed. | |
| site_evaluation_handoff | No | Pre-built follow-up calls (analyze_site / get_water_risk args) when the payload carries coordinates — an array of {tool, parameters, why} entries. |