---
sidebar_position: 1
slug: /developers
---

> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.lium.io/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Developers

Build on top of Lium programmatically — whether you're a human writing a service or an AI agent driving the platform on a user's behalf. Everything Lium exposes (REST API, CLI, Python SDK, MCP, llms.txt) is documented here. The external URLs in the lists below are stable and safe to bookmark.

## For AI agents

Start at **[AI Agents](/developers/agents)** — a single page that wires up all four agent surfaces:

- [`https://docs.lium.io/mcp`](/developers/mcp) — docs MCP server (search + read pages)
- [`https://docs.lium.io/llms-full.txt`](/developers/llms-txt) — full docs as one markdown bundle
- [`https://lium.io/api/openapi.json`](/developers/api) — live OpenAPI 3.1 spec for the platform API
- [`curl -fsSL https://lium.io/install.sh | bash`](/developers/cli/overview) — shell-driven pod management

## For developers

One package, `lium.io`, ships the CLI and the Python SDK; both read the same key from `~/.lium/config.ini`. In order:

| Step | What you do | Page |
|------|-------------|------|
| 1 | Install: `pip install lium.io` or `curl -fsSL https://lium.io/install.sh \| bash` | [CLI installation](/developers/cli/installation) |
| 2 | Authenticate: `lium signup` (new account) or `lium init` (existing) — or paste a key from **Access → API Keys** | [`lium signup`](/developers/cli/reference/signup) · [`lium init`](/developers/cli/reference/init) |
| 3 | Rent, connect, run, stop from the shell: `lium ls` → `up` → `ssh`/`exec` → `rm` | [CLI quickstart](/developers/cli/quickstart) · [Reference](/developers/cli/reference) |
| 4 | Script the same lifecycle in Python with `Lium()` | [SDK](/developers/sdk) · [Pod lifecycle example](/developers/sdk/examples/pod-lifecycle) |
| 5 | Run one function on a GPU and get the result back: `@lium.machine` | [SDK → `@lium.machine`](/developers/sdk#liummachine-decorator) · [Remote inference example](/developers/sdk/examples/machine-inference) |
| 6 | Call what the CLI does not wrap over REST with `X-API-Key` | [Developer quickstart](/developers/quickstart) · [API](/developers/api) |

`lium ls` and `lium ps` take `--format json`; `exec`, `describe`, `balance`, `signup`, `topup create` and every `lium provider …` command take `--json`, so the CLI is scriptable without the SDK.

- [MCP endpoint](/developers/mcp) — Model Context Protocol docs server
- [llms.txt](/developers/llms-txt) — `/llms.txt` and `/llms-full.txt` for LLM context

The live Swagger UI is hosted at [lium.io/documents](https://lium.io/documents); the raw spec lives at [lium.io/api/openapi.json](https://lium.io/api/openapi.json).