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Four steps to an account, a server-side API key, a file in storage, and a public URL that resizes it on the fly.

1. Create your account

1

Open the app

Go to app.openinary.dev and enter your email address. Signing in and signing up are the same form: a new address creates the account.
2

Enter the code

You receive a 6-digit code by email (valid 10 minutes). Enter it and you’re in, on the Free plan. You can also use Google. There is no password.
Signed in, you land on the media browser for your default bucket, Main.

2. Create an API key

Your key is what lets your backend talk to https://cdn.openinary.dev.
1

Open the API keys tab

Click your account in the bottom-left of the dashboard → SettingsAPI keys.
2

Fill in the three fields

  • Name, so you can tell keys apart later, e.g. Production.
  • Bucket, the one this key can read and write. It cannot be changed later, create a second key rather than re-pointing this one.
  • Expires, in days, from 1 to 365 (default 365).
3

Copy the key immediately

The key (oik_…) is displayed once, right after creation. Store it in your secret manager or .env now, there is no way to read it back.
The key writes to and deletes from your bucket. Keep it server-side only: never in a browser bundle, a mobile app, or a public repo. For browser uploads use presigned signatures instead.
Disable a key with the Power icon or delete it outright, both take effect immediately.

3. Upload a file

Send the key as x-api-key, or as Authorization: Bearer, either works.
The response tells you where the file landed, and gives you your delivery path:
That url carries your bucket ID, the /b/{bucketId}/ segment. It is not a secret, it appears in every public URL you serve, and you can also read it off any file in the dashboard’s asset details panel.

4. Deliver it, transformed

Prefix the returned url with https://cdn.openinary.dev and insert transformation parameters right after /t/:
The first request queues the transformation and answers 202 {"status":"processing"} rather than image bytes. Request it again a moment later and you get the result, served from the CDN cache from then on. The parameter list is exactly the same as the self-hosted version, see Image transformations and Video transformations. Open that URL in a browser: the first load may show the 202 JSON rather than the picture. Reload once and the image appears. That is the pipeline working, not a failure.

5. Use it in a real app

The pattern that holds in production: uploads and storage calls run on your server with the API key, delivery URLs are public and go straight to the CDN.
app/api/products/route.ts
components/product-image.tsx
.env
Proxying /upload through an unauthenticated public route with your key attached leaks the key just as surely as shipping it. Either authenticate the server route yourself, as above, or use presigned signatures so the browser only holds a short-lived token.

Videos

Videos work the same way, with one difference: a transformation is processed asynchronously. The first request for a transformed video returns 202 while it encodes; poll the status endpoint (or listen to /queue/events) until it’s completed.
A video URL with no parameters, /t/clips/demo.mp4, is never transcoded. It streams the stored file with range requests, so seeking works. Transcoding happens only when the URL asks for it.

Next steps

Cloud API Reference

Every endpoint, authentication, errors and rate limits.

File Uploader

A ready-made React uploader wired to your Cloud bucket.

Transformations

The complete parameter reference.

Plans & limits

What’s included, and what happens past it.