Overview

Pipelet exposes four API surfaces. They overlap intentionally — different teams want different abstractions for the same hardware. Pick the one that matches your job and ignore the others.

Decision matrix

If your goal is…	Use…	Auth	Why
Build a CPO/fleet backend that talks to many stations	Headless CPMS API	X-API-Key	One REST gateway, webhooks, SDKs in Python (wallecpms) — the friendliest entry point.
Drop-in OCPP 1.6 control with full protocol fidelity	OCPP Server API	X-API-Key	Direct access to triggers, configuration keys, OICP roaming, Plug & Charge — the lower layer Headless wraps.
Let Claude or another LLM agent operate the network	MCP Server	API key in env	Model Context Protocol — 30 tools, no glue code, runs against any MCP client.
Test your own backend without buying hardware	Charger Simulator	X-API-Key (optional)	Spin up 1–10,000 virtual OCPP chargers, inject faults, stream events.

Tip

Most integrators start with Headless CPMS and only drop down to OCPP Server when they need a feature the gateway hasn’t exposed yet. AI agent builders start with MCP Server. Hardware vendors and protocol nerds head straight to OCPP Server.

API capability matrix

Capability	Headless	OCPP Server	MCP	Chargersim
List stations	✅	✅	✅	✅
Start / stop charging	✅	✅	✅	✅ (simulated)
Read / write OCPP config keys	✅	✅	✅	–
Webhooks for OCPP events	✅ (23 types)	–	–	–
Hubject / OICP roaming	✅	✅	–	–
Plug & Charge (ISO 15118)	–	✅	–	–
Live billing & CDRs	✅	✅	✅	–
Load management	✅	–	✅	–
Real-time event stream (SSE)	–	–	–	✅
Fault injection	–	–	–	✅
Mass virtual stations	–	–	–	✅

Where to next?

Your First API Call Five-minute hands-on quickstart against Headless CPMS.

Authentication How API keys work, how to rotate them, where to store them.

Why Pipelet is Claude-ready Connect any MCP client to the 30-tool catalog in 3 minutes.

Self-Hosting Run the minimal Pipelet stack on your own infrastructure.