Pika AI for Developers

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The Pika API at a glance

Sources: Pika API homepage and llms.txt.

Official developer resources

Pika’s docs set the order of truth: the live catalog first, then each operation’s linked specification, then llms.txt for discovery. “Do not infer endpoint paths, request fields, enum values, pricing, or model support from a model name or from prior knowledge.”

Quickstart in three commands

1. Store your key

export PIKA_API_KEY="your-key-here"

2. Confirm connectivity (free, no key needed)

curl https://api.dev.pika.art/catalog/apis

3. Submit a Pika 2.5 text-to-video job

curl -X POST https://api.dev.pika.art/v1/media/pika/pika-2.5/text-to-video \
  -H "X-API-Key: $PIKA_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"prompt": "A paper boat drifts down a rain-filled gutter, soft grey daylight", "resolution": "720p", "duration_s": 5}'

At Pika’s listed $0.04 per second, this 5-second 720p test costs about $0.20. Poll GET /v1/media/jobs/{id} until the status is completed or failed. Full walkthrough: your first request.

Node.js example

Our own minimal script (Node 18+), based on Pika’s published spec. Run it server-side only.

const BASE = "https://api.dev.pika.art";
const headers = {
  "X-API-Key": process.env.PIKA_API_KEY,
  "Content-Type": "application/json",
};
const sleep = (ms) => new Promise((r) => setTimeout(r, ms));

async function main() {
  let job = await fetch(`${BASE}/v1/media/pika/pika-2.5/text-to-video`, {
    method: "POST",
    headers,
    body: JSON.stringify({
      prompt: "A paper boat drifts down a rain-filled gutter, soft grey daylight",
      resolution: "720p",
      duration_s: 5,
    }),
  }).then((r) => r.json());

  while (!["completed", "failed"].includes(job.status)) {
    await sleep(10000);
    job = await fetch(`${BASE}/v1/media/jobs/${job.id}`, { headers })
      .then((r) => r.json());
  }

  if (job.status === "completed") {
    console.log("Video URL:", job.output.video.url);
  } else {
    console.error("Job failed:", job);
  }
}

main();

For production, add an Idempotency-Key header on submits, handle errors such as 429 with backoff, and prefer webhooks to polling.

Building with AI coding agents

Pika calls its API “agent-native.” Its agent page says you can “paste one onboarding prompt into Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Lovable, Replit, ChatGPT, or Grok Bot and call the Pika API to generate video, image, audio, music, and speech.”

The onboarding prompt tells your agent to:

• Ask what you want to build and whether it’s working in a repository, an app builder or chat.
• “Fetch https://dev.pika.art/llms.txt, choose the best model and operation,” then read its specification: “Do not guess endpoints, fields, model support, or pricing.”
• Handle your key safely: “Never ask me to paste it into chat, expose it in browser code, or commit it.”
• “Ask before creating batches or using expensive settings.”
• Finish with working code or a generated result, and suggest one next capability.

Copy the full prompt from dev.pika.art/agent.

Language models through the same key

Besides media, the catalog includes language models from providers such as Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, DeepSeek, Moonshot AI and Z.ai. They use synchronous endpoints:

Pika’s instruction: “Use only the protocol and model identifier from the selected model’s specification.” That makes it possible to write a script and generate its visuals with one key.

What developers build with Pika

Pika’s API site describes four kinds of builders:

For more ideas, see Pika use cases.

Production tips

• Keep keys server-side. Pika: “A browser application must call Pika through its own authenticated server route.”
• Quote before spending with the free quote endpoint, and check the balance before paid submits.
• Use webhooks, verify signatures and deduplicate on webhook-id.
• Make submits idempotent; “Never reuse an idempotency key with a different body.”
• Don’t silently switch models after a paid failure; Pika advises getting approval first.
• Store outputs yourself and delete job media you no longer need.

Error codes and fixes: API errors · troubleshooting: Pika not working?

Developer FAQs