Quickstart

1. Get an account number

Open https://chat.crowbot.sh and press Create a new account. You get a 16-digit number like 4192 0837 5561 2094.

That number is the whole account: no email, no password, no recovery. It is also your API key. Write it down — we store only a hash, so it cannot be shown again.

2. Fund it

A new account starts empty, so the chat and the API both answer 402 insufficient_balance until you fund it. Press Top up in the chat UI and name an amount. Payment is by crypto or card; crypto settles in stablecoin, and balances never expire.

Without a browser: GET https://chat.crowbot.sh/api/funding for the allowed range, then GET https://chat.crowbot.sh/checkout?usd=25 with your key as the Bearer returns {"checkout_url"}; pay it, and poll GET https://api.crowbot.sh/api/me until the balance rises. The API page has the whole flow, signup included.

3. Call it

copyshcurl https://api.crowbot.sh/v1/chat/completions \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $CROWBOT_KEY" \
  -H 'content-type: application/json' \
  -d '{
    "model": "gpt-6-astra",
    "messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "Say hello in five words."}]
  }'

With the OpenAI SDK, change two settings and nothing else:

copypythonfrom openai import OpenAI

client = OpenAI(base_url="https://api.crowbot.sh/v1", api_key="4192083755612094")
print(client.chat.completions.create(
    model="gpt-6-astra",
    messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Say hello in five words."}],
).choices[0].message.content)

4. Point a coding agent at it

See opencode for a one-line installer. Any agent that speaks chat-completions needs only the base URL and the key.

Codex (the OpenAI CLI): add a provider to ~/.codex/config.toml and select it.

copytomlmodel_provider = "crowbot"
model = "gpt-6-astra"

[model_providers.crowbot]
name = "crowbot"
base_url = "https://api.crowbot.sh/v1"
env_key = "CROWBOT_API_KEY"
wire_api = "chat"

Claude Code speaks the Anthropic Messages API, which crowbot does not serve: pointing ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL here gets a 404. Use a translating proxy (LiteLLM), opencode, or Codex.

Checking your balance

copyshcurl https://api.crowbot.sh/api/me -H "Authorization: Bearer $CROWBOT_KEY"

Returns the balance, total spent and request count. Every chat-completions response also carries X-Balance-Microdollars.