API can be started in "mock mode", so that it works without any special hardware.
Install virtualenvwrapper, for Python 2.7. See http://virtualenvwrapper.readthedocs.io/en/latest/install.html for install, config, and basic usage.
A very good alternative to virtualenvwrapper (i.e. virtualenv) is pyenv. It requires somewhat more careful configuration though. https://github.com/yyuu/pyenv
... from GitHub.
$ cd path/to/cloned/repo
$ pip install -r tca/requirements.txt
To run Lights API in mock mode:
$ python tca/api/lights.py run --mock
API is "RESTful". All endpoints support GET. Changing data should generally be done with PUT though POST is also supported, for compatibility.
Direct a web browser to http://localhost:5000/lights/. Browsers set Accept: text/html HTTP header, which causes FlaskAPI to render a "browsable" (i.e. human readable) version of the API. This version also shows descriptions of endpoints (from docstrings).
When using API "for real", always set Accept: application/json HTTP header. This will cause FlaskAPI to render only the minimal resource representation, without any fancy HTML.