Setup: your API key

Create a key

API keys are managed at /account/api (you’ll need to be signed in). Create one and Calliope shows you the secret once — copy it then, because it’s never shown again. Only a hash is stored, so a lost key can’t be recovered; you just revoke it and make another.

Each key in the list shows its name, its last few characters, and when it was created and last used, so you can tell them apart and revoke the right one.

Keys look like cal_…. Treat one like a password: never print it, never commit it.

Make a call

Send your key as a bearer token on every request:

curl https://app.writecalliope.ink/api/v1/books \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer cal_your_key"

That’s a read call — it lists your books, and it’s free. Grab a book’s id from the response and you can read its outline, chapters, Map, and marginalia the same way. See the endpoint reference for the full set.

Let an LLM build it

You don’t have to write the integration yourself. Calliope publishes a brief written for an LLM to read — /api/v1/llms.txt — and the /account/api page gives you a ready-made onboarding prompt to hand your assistant along with your key. The shape is:

Read the docs first: https://app.writecalliope.ink/api/v1/llms.txt (and the OpenAPI at https://app.writecalliope.ink/api/v1/openapi.json). Then build me the smallest script that does [what you want]. Here is my key: cal_…

The LLM reads the contract, learns the cost model and the prose caveats, and writes you the smallest script for the job. The API is designed for exactly this — the docs are the product for the non-developer.

Before you spend anything

Two things worth knowing before your script does more than read:

• AI calls spend your credits, and writes need a subscription — the same model as the rest of Calliope. A call that isn’t allowed comes back with a clear error, not a surprise on your bill.
• Writing prose is powerful and has costs to your annotations. Don’t script prose writes until you’ve read Writing prose safely.

Revoke a key

Revoke any key from /account/api. It stops working immediately; anything else you’ve built keeps running on its own key.