API & Agent Control

The same isomorphic engine that streams video in the studio renders single images over HTTP — for scripts, automations, and AI agents. Perceptually-correct linear-light luminance, high-quality pyramid downscaling, unsharp-mask detail enhancement, Floyd–Steinberg dithering, Sobel edge detection, and an adaptive Bayesian temporal filter, all under the hood.

Live playground

POST /api/v1/render

Image URL

Columns · 100

Charset

Format

cURL

curl -X POST /api/v1/render \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"imageUrl":"/test-portrait.png","columns":100,"charset":"detailed","format":"text","color":false,"edges":false}'

Response

Run a request to see the output.

Endpoints

GET/api/healthLiveness + capability probe.

POST/api/v1/renderRender an image to ascii/ansi/html/json/svg.

GET/api/v1/a2v-handoffTrusted V2A -> A2V streaming handoff.

POST/api/mcpModel Context Protocol (JSON-RPC 2.0).

GET/api/v1/agentMachine-readable agent capability manifest.

GET/api/openapi.jsonOpenAPI 3.1 specification.

Render parameters

Param	Type	Default	Description
columns	integer 8–400	120	Output width in characters.
charset	enum	detailed	One of: standard, detailed, blocks, binary, dots, minimal.
format	enum	text	text \| ansi \| html \| json \| json-compact \| svg.
color	boolean	false	Per-cell 24-bit color (ignored by plain text).
invert	boolean	false	Invert luminance mapping.
contrast	float 0.2–4	1.15	Tonal contrast multiplier.
brightness	float -150–150	0	Luminance offset.
saturation	float 0–4	1.4	Color-mode saturation boost.
gamma	float 0.2–3	1	Perceptual midtone response.
edges	boolean	false	Sobel edge-detection line-art mode.
edgeStrength	float 0.1–5	1.8	Edge magnitude multiplier.
dither	boolean	false	Floyd–Steinberg error diffusion.
sharpen	float 0–1	0.35	Unsharp-mask detail enhancement.
autoLevels	float 0–1	0.9	Automatic percentile histogram stretch.
structure	float 0–1	0.55	Contour-aware directional glyph substitution ( - / \| \ ).
denoise	float 0–1	0.35	Edge-preserving bilateral denoising before detail recovery.
motionSensitivity	float 0–1	0.7	Motion responsiveness in the final Bayesian posterior update.
autoOptimize	float 0–1	0.9	Strength of source-aware Auto Director tuning against the selected quality rubric.
qualityTarget	enum	balanced	balanced \| portrait \| motion \| low-light \| round-trip.
glyphStrategy	enum	adaptive	adaptive chooses the smallest glyph codebook under maxGlyphRmse; fixed preserves the selected ramp.
maxGlyphRmse	float 0.005–0.1	0.03	Maximum normalized luminance quantization RMSE for adaptive glyph selection.
monoColor	hex	#e5e5e5	Color for mono/ansi/svg/html output.

Formats:textansihtmljsonjson-compactsvgCharsets:standarddetailedblocksbinarydotsminimal

Agents & MCP

POST /api/mcp

The Model Context Protocol endpoint speaks JSON-RPC 2.0 and exposes a single render_ascii tool. Point any MCP-compatible agent at the endpoint, or fetch the agent manifest for ready-to-run recipes.

MCP tool call

curl -X POST /api/mcp \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "jsonrpc": "2.0",
    "id": 1,
    "method": "tools/call",
    "params": {
      "name": "render_ascii",
      "arguments": { "imageUrl": "https://asciicast.stream/test-portrait.png", "color": true, "format": "ansi" }
    }
  }'

Discovery

/llms.txtConcise LLM discovery doc./llms-full.txtFull machine reference./api/v1/a2v-handoffTrusted A2V handoff protocol./api/openapi.jsonOpenAPI 3.1 spec./api/v1/agentAgent manifest + recipes.