Hydracept

Hydracept is an execution control plane for software and AI agents that need external capabilities—text, reasoning, image, audio, video, 3D, domains, and compute—through one API with discovery, quotes, durable jobs, artifacts, receipts, budgets, and BYOK. Games and media are common examples; a headline workflow is AI game assets from Cursor or Claude Code into Unity (workflow overview).

Pricing (summary): Free plan ($0/mo) for individuals; paid plans add capacity. BYOK at 0% Hydracept fee; managed inference is provider cost + 6% service fee (actual usage, no per-call minimum). Eligible durable text jobs can use deferred processing at 50% of standard token rates. Details: hydracept.com/pricing and Billing docs.

Install

Surface	Command
Python CLI & SDK	pip install -U hydracept
TypeScript	npm install @hydracept/sdk
.NET	dotnet add package Hydracept.Client
Unity (UPM git)	com.hydracept.unity via Git URL — see Unity integration (OpenUPM listing pending owner submit)

Public HTTP API: https://api.hydracept.com · OpenAPI: hydracept-v1.json · Agent context: GET https://api.hydracept.com/v1/agent-context

Bootstrap

pip install -U hydracept
python -m hydracept init --apply --yes --json
python -m hydracept doctor

Studio (browser): app.hydracept.com/login. For CI or headless use, set HYDRACEPT_API_KEY and run the same init command with --ci when you need setup grants. Workspace files live under .hydracept/ — see Authentication.

Minimal example

One-shot image generation (composes init when the workspace can be bootstrapped):

python -m hydracept run image.generate.v1 --prompt "transparent 1024x1024 blue slime icon" --json

Python SDK (after init binds the workspace):

from hydracept.client import HydraceptClient

client = HydraceptClient.from_workspace()
job = client.submit_capability_job(
    "image.generate.v1",
    {
        "input": {"prompt": "cute slime icon, flat game art"},
        "execution": {"executionPreference": "automatic"},
        "idempotencyKey": "demo-1",
    },
)
finished = client.wait_for_job(job["jobId"])
receipt = client.get_job_receipt(job["jobId"])

Discover capabilities live (do not hard-code keys from this README):

python -m hydracept capabilities find "generate an image"
curl -sS -H "Authorization: Bearer $HYDRACEPT_API_KEY" https://api.hydracept.com/v1/capabilities

More examples: public/examples/.

MCP (Cursor & Claude Code)

In a project checkout, stdio MCP is the default after init:

python -m hydracept init --apply --yes --json   # binds MCP to workspace secrets; reload MCP if prompted
python -m hydracept mcp serve                   # stdio server
python -m hydracept agents install --auto       # Cursor / Claude Code plugin + hooks

• Plugin & install links: hydracept.com/plugin
• Hosted MCP (no repo checkout): https://api.hydracept.com/mcp with bearer HYDRACEPT_API_KEY
• MCP Registry name: com.hydracept/hydracept

Do not paste workspace API keys into IDE plugin config when stdio bind is available. Full agent guide: Coding Agents.

Documentation

Topic	Link
Docs home	docs.hydracept.com
Quick start (detailed)	Quick Start
Capabilities & jobs	Capabilities, Jobs & receipts
Image production	Image production
Unity	Unity integration
BYOK & billing	Connections / BYOK, Billing
LLM-oriented summary	hydracept.com/llms.txt
Product manifest	/.well-known/hydracept.json

Repository layout

• clients/python — PyPI package hydracept (CLI, SDK, local MCP)
• clients/typescript — npm @hydracept/sdk
• clients/csharp — NuGet Hydracept.Client
• packages/unity — Unity Editor package
• public/docs — source for docs.hydracept.com (Quick Start content; this root README is the GitHub front door)

License

MIT — see LICENSE. Package metadata on PyPI, npm, and NuGet also lists MIT.