Quickstart

Lightdrift is in private beta. If you don’t have an API key yet, request one at lightdrift.ai.Beta note: after ~5 idle minutes the first query pays a cold start (up to a couple of minutes) while GPUs wake; subsequent queries are fast. Retry-safe — the request completes.

Get an API key

Make your first search

Pass your key in the X-API-Key header and describe what you need:

curl -X POST https://api.lightdrift.ai/v1/search \
  -H "X-API-Key: $LIGHTDRIFT_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"query": "a spanish shawl nudibranch on a reef", "k": 5}'

import requests

r = requests.post(
    "https://api.lightdrift.ai/v1/search",
    headers={"X-API-Key": LIGHTDRIFT_API_KEY},
    json={"query": "a spanish shawl nudibranch on a reef", "k": 5},
)
for hit in r.json()["results"]:
    print(hit["title"], hit["file"], hit["rights"]["license"])

const r = await fetch("https://api.lightdrift.ai/v1/search", {
  method: "POST",
  headers: {
    "X-API-Key": process.env.LIGHTDRIFT_API_KEY,
    "Content-Type": "application/json",
  },
  body: JSON.stringify({ query: "a spanish shawl nudibranch on a reef", k: 5 }),
});
const { results } = await r.json();

Read the rights answer

Every result carries a rights object — license, permission flags, a ready-to-use attribution string, and how the file is delivered:

{
  "license": "cc-by-4.0",
  "commercial": true,
  "attribution_required": true,
  "attribution": "\"Spanish shawl (Flabellina iodinea)\" by anudibranchmom, iNaturalist, CC BY 4.0",
  "delivery": "host"
}

See Rights answers for the full field reference and the posture behind it.

Use the file

When rights.delivery is host, the file URL is served from Lightdrift storage and safe to hotlink or download. When it is link, Lightdrift points you at the rights holder’s copy.

Design-layer filters

Filter by luminance, negative space, palette, aspect, and faces — or let parse_design read it from your query text.

Use with agents

Give your agent the whole engine as a tool.

Get started

Core concepts

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Design-layer filters

Use with agents

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Design-layer filters

Use with agents

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