Flash Props API

Sellable, agent-native sports-betting player-props data API by Flash AI Solutions. Unifies the props board into one clean REST + MCP feed — pre-game props for MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL, NCAA, soccer, tennis, and esports (CS2, Valorant, Dota 2, Call of Duty). American odds. Coverage varies by sport, season, and upstream availability.

Modeled on what Unusual Whales did: a real product with token auth, tiered rate limits, Stripe billing, an OpenAPI spec, a public storefront, and an MCP server so AI agents can consume it directly.

Stack

• Hono + @hono/zod-openapi — routes and auto-generated OpenAPI 3.1 spec

• Scalar — interactive API reference at /docs

• Drizzle + better-sqlite3 — API keys (HMAC-hashed) + usage counters

• Stripe — Checkout + webhook subscription lifecycle

• @hono/mcp + @modelcontextprotocol/sdk — Streamable-HTTP MCP server at /mcp

• Data: free upstreams only, so it costs $0 to run. (Underdog is the live source today; a Bovada adapter exists for live in-game lines but currently returns empty from the VPS.)

Related MCP server: sportsdata-mcp

Endpoints

Auth: Authorization: Bearer <key> (also X-API-Key: or ?api_key=).

Tiers

src/config/tiers.ts — Free (in-season sport, 250/day, 25-row scans) · Starter ($15, all active sports, 10k/day, 100-row scans) · Pro ($39, all sports, 100k/day, 500-row scans) · Enterprise (custom). Tiers differ by request volume, scan size, and sport breadth — every tier serves the same pre-game snapshot (no realtime/delayed split).

Run locally

npm install
npm run db:seed        # prints a PRO + FREE test key (shown once)
npm run dev            # tsx watch on :3860

Then: curl -H "Authorization: Bearer <key>" "http://localhost:3860/api/v1/props?sport=mlb&limit=10"

Build & deploy (VPS)

CI/CD: push to main → GitHub Actions (.github/workflows/deploy.yml) typechecks, builds, ships dist/ to the VPS over SSH, and pm2 restarts. No manual steps. Secrets: VPS_SSH_KEY (dedicated ed25519 deploy key), VPS_HOST, VPS_USER.

Production runs the compiled output (node dist/index.js) — not tsx — to stay independent of Node/tsx versions. Manual deploy (if ever needed) = build locally, ship the artifact:

npm run build          # tsc -> dist/ (NodeNext, .js extensions required)
# tar excluding node_modules/.git/data/.env (anchor data exclude: --exclude=./data
# so dist/data is NOT stripped), scp to /opt/flash-props-api, extract
ssh root@5.78.189.124 'cd /opt/flash-props-api && npm install --omit=dev && pm2 restart flash-props-api'

• pm2 process: flash-props-api on port 3862 (pm2 start dist/index.js)

• Fronted by Caddy: api.flashodds.live { reverse_proxy localhost:3862 }

• Env in /opt/flash-props-api/.env (mode 600): PORT, PUBLIC_BASE_URL, API_KEY_SECRET, DATABASE_URL, Stripe keys.

To enable billing: set STRIPE_SECRET_KEY and STRIPE_WEBHOOK_SECRET in .env and restart. Plan prices come from src/config/tiers.ts (single source of truth), so no Stripe price IDs are needed. Until then, checkout returns a friendly 503.

Layout

src/
  index.ts          entry: mounts everything, serves openapi + docs
  env.ts            zod-validated env
  config/           tiers.ts, sports.ts
  data/             underdog.ts, bovada.ts, props.ts (facade), types.ts
  auth/             keys.ts (HMAC), middleware.ts
  rate-limit/       limiter.ts (per-minute), middleware.ts (+ per-day quota)
  db/               schema.ts, client.ts (self-bootstrapping), usage.ts, seed.ts
  routes/           v1.ts (API), meta.ts (landing + skill.md), gating.ts
  openapi/          schemas.ts (zod -> spec)
  mcp/              server.ts (tools), http.ts (streamable transport)
  billing/          stripe.ts, provision.ts, routes.ts