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renderkit
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Quickstart

From zero to a hosted render in three steps. No credit card, no infrastructure.

1. Get an API key

Sign in with GitHub or Google. Your first key and a batch of free sandbox credits are provisioned instantly — the plaintext key is shown once, so copy it then.

Copy your key immediately

Only a SHA-256 hash of the key is stored server-side. If you lose it, you can't recover it — create a new one. Keys look like rk_sandbox_… or rk_live_….

2. Export it

shell
export RK_KEY="rk_sandbox_a1b2c3d4e5f6g7h8i9j0k1l2m3n4o5p6"

3. Render

Each primitive is a single POST. Try all three:

curl https://api.renderkit.tech/v1/screenshot \
  -H "x-api-key: $RK_KEY" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{ "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com", "full_page": true }'

The response

Screenshot and PDF return a hosted url; extract returns the content inline. The render object is identical otherwise.

200 · application/json
{
  "success": true,
  "data": {
    "id": "rnd_8fk2m1c4",
    "type": "screenshot",
    "status": "done",
    "url": "https://cdn.renderkit.tech/renders/3a7b9c…e9.png",
    "url_expires_at": "2027-06-14T10:24:01.000Z",
    "meta": { "width": 1440, "height": 4860, "format": "png" },
    "render_ms": 842,
    "credits_used": 1,
    "cached": false,
    "created_at": "2026-06-14T10:24:00.000Z",
    "completed_at": "2026-06-14T10:24:00.842Z"
  },
  "message": "Success"
}

Install an SDK (optional)

npm i renderkit-sdk

Next: go to production

Swap your sandbox key for a rk_live_… key on a paid plan to unlock async, webhooks, custom headers, and JS injection. See Plans & limits.

Documentation