Hydracept

Quick Start

Hydracept gives game tools and backends one stable API for text, image, audio, video, and 3D generation.

Free for individual developers · BYOK · no inference markup

5-minute path

Follow 5-minute game asset for activate → doctor → smoke / first job → BYOK.

Activate

Pick one:

  1. Studio (browser): app.hydracept.com/login — sign in with GitHub or Google, complete onboarding, then generate in Studio. Manage plans at Studio Billing.
  2. Browser activation: open https://hydracept.com/start, sign in with GitHub or Google, and save your API key (use Copy setup for coding agent when an agent continues).
  3. CLI (human): python -m hydracept login then configure.
  4. CLI (agent/headless): python -m hydracept quickstart --token <key> --json --smoke.

Public API: https://api.hydracept.com

Configuration directory (CLI): .hydracept/

Environment variables: HYDRACEPT_API_URL, HYDRACEPT_API_KEY, HYDRACEPT_PROJECT, HYDRACEPT_ENVIRONMENT

BYOK: API keys authenticate callers. Provider keys pay for inference. Free orgs get a one-time smoke budget for python -m hydracept smoke before BYOK — see Connections / BYOK and Billing & plans.

CLI


pip install -U hydracept

# Prefer the module form if `hydracept` is not on PATH (common on Windows):
python -m hydracept quickstart --token <HYDRACEPT_API_KEY> --json --smoke   # agents
python -m hydracept login                               # browser device flow
python -m hydracept configure
python -m hydracept doctor
python -m hydracept smoke
python -m hydracept agent-context

Device login opens https://api.hydracept.com/device. Agents should prefer --token after browser activation.

SDKs

The Python SDK and CLI are available now:


pip install -U hydracept
python -m hydracept --help

The TypeScript SDK is also available:


npm install @hydracept/sdk

Discover capabilities


curl -sS -H "Authorization: Bearer $HYDRACEPT_API_KEY" \
  https://api.hydracept.com/v1/capabilities

Currently supported capabilities:

See Capabilities for how capability keys work.

For image production (Sheet & Slice, transparent output, variants), see Image production.

For Unity 6 Editor integration (generate, sheet slice, import with provenance), see Unity integration.

Submit a durable job


JOB_JSON=$(curl -sS -X POST \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $HYDRACEPT_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "context": {
      "productId": "my-product",
      "projectId": "cpr_...",
      "environment": "development"
    },
    "input": { "prompt": "cute slime icon" },
    "execution": { "executionPreference": "automatic" },
    "idempotencyKey": "demo-1"
  }' \
  https://api.hydracept.com/v1/capabilities/image.generate.v1/jobs)

echo "$JOB_JSON"
JOB_ID=$(printf '%s' "$JOB_JSON" | python -c "import sys,json; print(json.load(sys.stdin)['jobId'])")

The submit response is a HydraceptJob object. Use jobId from that payload for poll and receipt calls.

Poll the job


curl -sS -H "Authorization: Bearer $HYDRACEPT_API_KEY" \
  https://api.hydracept.com/v1/jobs/$JOB_ID

Poll until status is succeeded, failed, or canceled.

Fetch the receipt


curl -sS -H "Authorization: Bearer $HYDRACEPT_API_KEY" \
  https://api.hydracept.com/v1/jobs/$JOB_ID/receipt

See Durable Jobs & Receipts for artifacts and outputs.

Next