Quickstart - Curtly

Follow these steps to generate API credentials and execute a compression request.

1. Create API Key

Generate an API key in the Curtly Dashboard. Secret keys use the ctly_live_ prefix.

2. Execute Request

Send a POST request to https://curtly.dev/api/v1/compress with your API key:

curl -X POST https://curtly.dev/api/v1/compress \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer ctly_live_YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "prompt": "You are a database engineer. Please make sure that you write valid JSON: {\"status\": \"ok\"}",
    "mode": "balanced",
    "protectCodeBlocks": true,
    "protectJson": true
  }'

import { Curtly } from '@curtly/sdk';

const curtly = new Curtly({
  apiKey: process.env.CURTLY_API_KEY || 'ctly_live_YOUR_API_KEY',
});

const result = await curtly.compress({
  prompt: 'You are a database engineer. Please make sure that you write valid JSON: {"status": "ok"}',
  mode: 'balanced',
  protectCodeBlocks: true,
  protectJson: true,
});

console.log(result.compressed);
// Output: "Role: database engineer. Write valid JSON: {"status": "ok"}"

from curtly import Curtly

client = Curtly(api_key="ctly_live_YOUR_API_KEY")

response = client.compress(
    prompt='You are a database engineer. Please make sure that you write valid JSON: {"status": "ok"}',
    mode="balanced",
    protect_code_blocks=True,
    protect_json=True,
)

print(response.compressed)

3. Response Structure

The endpoint returns the compressed string along with execution telemetry:

200 OK

{
  "success": true,
  "compressed": "Role: database engineer. Write valid JSON: {\"status\": \"ok\"}",
  "stats": {
    "mode": "balanced",
    "originalTokens": 24,
    "finalTokens": 12,
    "savedTokens": 12,
    "savedPercent": 50.0,
    "tokenizerUsed": "cl100k_base",
    "latencyMs": 1.48,
    "stageBreakdown": {
      "deterministicSaved": 7,
      "densitySaved": 5,
      "protectedItemsCount": 1
    },
    "protectedItems": {
      "codeBlocks": 0,
      "jsonBlocks": 1,
      "variables": 0
    },
    "integrityPassed": true
  }
}

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