API token

Create a token

Sign in at replicate.com and create a token under Account → API tokens. Tokens start with r8_.

Replicate bills every prediction to the account that owns the token. Check the price on the model page before large batches.

Set it

imgen reads the token only from the environment. There is no flag and no config file.

export REPLICATE_API_TOKEN="r8_your_token_here"

Add the line to your shell profile to keep it across sessions, or use a per-project tool such as direnv. imgen does not load .env files itself.

When it is missing

The check runs before anything else, so no request is sent:

$ imgen "A sunset over the ocean"
Error: Environment variable REPLICATE_API_TOKEN is not set

Caused by:
    environment variable not found

The exit code is 1.

What the token is used for

Two kinds of requests carry it: the model lookup that reads the input schema (Automatic schema detection) and the prediction itself, including polling for the result. An invalid token therefore fails at the model lookup, before any image is generated.

Continue with the Quickstart.