Planning Center People API: list and create people records

Steps

1. Authenticate with OAuth 2.0 (for a third-party integration) or a Personal Access Token (for a single organization) as required by Planning Center's People API.
2. List/search people with GET https://api.planningcenteronline.com/people/v2/people using where[] filters (e.g. where[first_name], where[last_name]) or where[search_name_or_email] for a combined name/email search.
3. Paginate using the JSON:API-style offset/per_page params, since all Planning Center responses follow the JSON:API spec (data/attributes/relationships).
4. Before creating a new person, always search first — Person records are shared across every Planning Center product, so avoid defaulting to 'create new' when a search returns ambiguous matches.
5. Create a person with POST https://api.planningcenteronline.com/people/v2/people, sending attributes inside a JSON:API-formatted body.
6. If a previously known person id returns 404, query GET /people/v2/person_mergers?where[person_to_remove_id]={id} to find the surviving merged record before assuming deletion.