Lensdrop developer docs

Lensdrop is a photo delivery tool for photographers, not a developer platform. Its one public API is this read-only content API: every marketing page as markdown, an llms.txt index, and the discovery files agents expect. It needs no key, no account, and no registration. Uploads, payments, and gallery delivery have no third-party API; see what is not public.

Machine-readable version of this page: /developers.md. Full API description: /openapi.json.

Discovery files

Quickstart

Everything is a plain anonymous GET on https://lensdrop.app. Every markdown page is also reachable by requesting its HTML URL with Accept: text/markdown.

curl https://lensdrop.app/llms.txt

curl https://lensdrop.app/pricing.md

curl -H "Accept: text/markdown" https://lensdrop.app/pricing

curl https://lensdrop.app/openapi.json

curl -i https://lensdrop.app/blog/no-such-post.md

Endpoints

Operation ids and parameter schemas (including the valid slugs) are in openapi.json, ready for function-calling tool definitions.

Errors

Every error is an RFC 9457 problem details object served as application/problem+json, with a real HTTP status: never a 200 wrapping an error, never an HTML page for an API path. Fields: type (documentation URL for the code), title, status, code (stable, machine-readable), detail, hint (what to do next), and optional instance (the request path). error is a legacy alias of detail.

{
  "type": "https://lensdrop.app/developers#not_found",
  "title": "Not found",
  "status": 404,
  "code": "not_found",
  "detail": "No markdown twin at /blog/no-such-post.md.",
  "hint": "Start from /llms.txt for the agent-readable site index, /openapi.json for the API description, or /sitemap.xml for every page.",
  "instance": "/blog/no-such-post.md",
  "error": "No markdown twin at /blog/no-such-post.md."
}

Unknown paths anywhere on the site return a real 404. Browsers get the HTML page, /api/* paths and JSON accepts get a problem document, and everything else (curl, agents) gets a markdown body with links to the discovery files above.

Rate limits

Anonymous access is limited per client IP to 120 requests per 60 seconds (sliding window), described by the IETF RateLimit header fields on every response. Exceeding it returns 429 rate_limited with Retry-After. Read RateLimit to self-throttle instead of retrying blindly.

Versioning and deprecation

The content API is versioned by the API-Version header. Every response states the version that produced it (currently 1). Requests may pin a version with the same header; omit it to get the current version. A pinned version this deployment no longer serves answers 400 with code unsupported_version and the supported list.

URLs and response shapes within a version only change additively: new fields, new endpoints, new headers. Removing or renaming anything means a new version.

When a version is deprecated, responses from it carry Deprecation (RFC 9745) and Sunset (RFC 8594) headers and a Link with rel="deprecation" pointing at the notice on this page, for at least 6 months before the sunset date. Deprecations are also listed in llms.txt.

No version has been deprecated yet.

What is not public

• Gallery uploads, downloads, and the client viewer: no third-party API. Bytes move between browsers, storage, and an image worker through signed URLs, never through an app server that an integration could call.
• Billing: photographers pay Lensdrop through Dodo Payments, the merchant of record for both currencies (INR in India, USD elsewhere). There is no API to create purchases, and there are never client-to-photographer payments.
• Connected devices: the desktop uploader and camera FTP use per-device credentials that the app issues and can revoke. They are not API keys for general use and are not documented here.

Crawling and AI use

robots.txt allows search engines and AI crawlers by name (GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended, and others) on the public pages and publishes Content Signals permitting search, AI input, and AI training. Galleries (/g/), the signed-in app, and /api are not crawlable.

Contact

Questions about agent access or this API: hello@lensdrop.app. Product questions belong in the help center.