Quickstart

From zero to your first Claude response in about five minutes.

Hephaestus gives you Claude through the same API Anthropic publishes, paid for in Naira. If your code already talks to Claude, the only thing that changes is the base URL and the key.

1. Create your account and key

Sign up, then copy the key you're shown. It's displayed once. You can create more any time under API keys.

2. Add funds

Open Billing and top up. The minimum is ₦5,000. Pay by card, bank transfer or USSD. Your balance never expires.

3. Make a request

curl https://api.gethephaestus.com/v1/messages \
  -H "x-api-key: hph_live_YOUR_KEY" \
  -H "anthropic-version: 2023-06-01" \
  -H "content-type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "model": "claude-sonnet-5-5",
    "max_tokens": 1024,
    "messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "Say hello to Lagos"}]
  }'

What's supported

• The full Messages API: streaming, tool use, vision, extended thinking, prompt caching, structured outputs, 1M context where the model supports it.
• The official Anthropic Python and TypeScript SDKs, Claude Code, and any HTTP client.
• Token counting (/v1/messages/count_tokens), which is free.

Not available: the Batches and Files APIs, fast mode, and the code-execution tool. See the API reference.