5-minute game asset

Generate your first game asset through Hydracept in about five minutes.

BYOK vs managed trial: Hydracept does not mark up inference. New Free orgs get a small managed trial budget so your first smoke can run before you connect a provider key. For sustained use, connect OpenAI, ElevenLabs, or Meshy (BYOK).

1. Activate

Option A — Browser (fastest)

  1. Open https://hydracept.com/start
  2. Sign in with GitHub or Google
  3. Save the printed API key — click Copy setup for coding agent if an agent will continue

Option B — CLI (humans)


pip install -U hydracept
python -m hydracept login
python -m hydracept configure

Option C — Agents / headless (API key paste)


pip install -U hydracept
python -m hydracept quickstart --token "$HYDRACEPT_API_KEY" --json --smoke

Legacy path (still supported): login --tokeninit --apply --yesdoctorsmoke.

2. Verify


python -m hydracept doctor

Doctor prints Next actions when something is missing (PATH tip, BYOK URL, smoke command).

3. First image (managed trial or BYOK)


python -m hydracept smoke

Or submit manually:


export HYDRACEPT_API_URL=https://api.hydracept.com
# keys from activation / .hydracept/local.env
JOB_JSON=$(curl -sS -X POST \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $HYDRACEPT_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d "{
    \"context\": {
      \"productId\": \"demo-game\",
      \"projectId\": \"$HYDRACEPT_PROJECT\",
      \"environment\": \"$HYDRACEPT_ENVIRONMENT\"
    },
    \"input\": { \"prompt\": \"cute slime enemy icon, flat game art\" },
    \"execution\": { \"executionPreference\": \"automatic\" },
    \"idempotencyKey\": \"five-minute-slime-1\"
  }" \
  "$HYDRACEPT_API_URL/v1/capabilities/image.generate.v1/jobs")

Open the BYOK form from activation (Configure BYOK), or visit:

https://api.hydracept.com/v1/onboarding/byok?organizationId=…&projectId=…&environment=development

Paste an OpenAI, ElevenLabs, or Meshy key — Hydracept encrypts and binds it. See Connections / BYOK.

What you proved

Next