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Use Bearly from scripts and agents

View as markdown

Bearly has a few doors for code and agents. Your own programs can call Bearly’s models with an API key. Scripts that Bearly writes and runs for you can call the same models without a key. And this manual is available as plain Markdown, so an agent can read it directly.

You want to Use
Call Bearly’s models from your own code or a coding tool The Bearly API with an API key
Have a script Bearly writes in a chat call Bearly’s models The built-in Bearly AI Models skill
Read this manual from an agent or a script The Markdown versions
Add your own tools to chats from your server Remote modules, an advanced feature that’s off by default
Operate Bearly’s interface for a person Guidance for agents

An API key lets your code call the Bearly API as your account.

You need: a Bearly account. On a managed organization, the policy must allow Developer API access; if it doesn’t, Developers or API Keys is missing from the menu.

  1. Open the account menu at the bottom of the sidebar and select Developers — Settings opens at API Keys.
  2. Select Create API Key, or New Key if you already have one.
  3. Enter a Note that says where the key is used, such as “Production app” (required, up to 50 characters), and select Create.
  4. Use the copy icon on the key’s row, and store it in a secret manager or a server environment variable.

What you get: a key that works until you delete it. You can reveal and copy it again later from the same row. Limits: keys have no scopes or expiry. A key can call models only: it can’t read or create chats, projects, files, or settings. Keep keys out of browser code, public repositories, and email.

To revoke a key, select Delete on its row, or open App Settings → Devices → Browser extension and API keys and select Remove. Deleting takes effect on the next request. The browser extension’s own key is listed there too, as Browser extension.

The Bearly API accepts requests in the Chat Completions, Responses, and Messages formats, so client libraries and coding tools that let you set a base URL and an API key can point at Bearly without code changes. Requests, responses, and streams keep the format your client already uses.

Format Base URL
Chat Completions and Responses https://api.bearly.ai/v1
Messages https://api.bearly.ai
Operation Path
Create a chat completion POST /v1/chat/completions
Create a response POST /v1/responses
Create a message POST /v1/messages
List models GET /v1/models

Send the key as Authorization: Bearer YOUR_KEY or X-Api-Key: YOUR_KEY. Listing models needs no key.

Terminal window
curl https://api.bearly.ai/v1/chat/completions \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $BEARLY_API_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"model": "bearly-fast", "messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "Hello"}]}'

Call GET https://api.bearly.ai/v1/models for the current list; each model lists the formats it supports. Use a model only with a format it supports. bearly-fast, bearly-pro, and bearly-ultra are the app’s Bearly Fast, Bearly Pro, and Bearly Ultra. Those names stay stable while the model behind them may improve, so they’re the safest choice for code you don’t want to update. A model that’s removed returns model_not_found; Bearly never switches your request to a different model.

  • Usage is billed to your account like chat: your plan’s allowance, your credits, and your organization’s limits and model policy all apply.
  • If your code stops reading a stream early, the model still finishes and the full response is billed.
  • Up to 10 requests can run at once per account; the 11th gets 429.
  • Only tools your own code defines and runs work. Tools hosted by a model provider, background mode, and priority processing return 400.
  • Continuing from an earlier response with previous_response_id, or retrieving a past response, isn’t available. Send the conversation history with each request.
  • The API covers model calls only. It doesn’t offer embeddings, image, audio, or file endpoints. Bearly doesn’t offer a hosted MCP server, webhooks, or a command-line tool.
Status Meaning
400 The request uses an option the Bearly API doesn’t support; the message names it
401 The key is missing, wrong, or deleted
402 Your plan doesn’t include the model, your allowance or credits can’t cover the request, or a Free-plan check refused it
403 Your organization turned off Developer API access for you, or its model policy blocks the model
404 model_not_found: the model name is wrong, doesn’t support that format, or isn’t offered any more
429 10 requests are already running for your account

Other errors come from the model provider, passed through unchanged. Full examples are in Use the Bearly API.

When Bearly writes and runs a script for you, in Work locally or a skill script, the built-in Bearly AI Models skill lets that script call Bearly’s models: chat models, image generation, document text recognition, web search, HTML-to-PDF, and audio transcription. The script gets a short-lived token, supplied to each run automatically and good for about five minutes; it works only for model calls. You don’t create or paste an API key, and usage counts on your account.

Use the Bearly AI Models skill. Write a script that reads every .txt file in this folder, asks a fast model for a one-line summary of each, and writes summaries.csv. Try 5 files first.

See the recipe Classify a folder of files with Bearly’s models.

Every page of this manual has a Markdown version for agents and scripts.

  • One page: drop the trailing slash and add .md. For example, https://bearly.ai/docs/manual/capabilities/routines/ is also https://bearly.ai/docs/manual/capabilities/routines.md. A request to the normal address with Accept: text/markdown gets the Markdown too.
  • The index: https://bearly.ai/docs/manual.md lists every page with a one-line description.
  • The whole manual: https://bearly.ai/docs/manual-full.txt is every page in one document.
  • Everything: https://bearly.ai/llms.txt links the manual, the feature guides, and their full-text bundles, including https://bearly.ai/llms-full.txt for all the guides.

Each page’s description says what it answers, so an agent can pick a page from the index and fetch only that one.

Remote modules let a developer add custom tools to Bearly chats from their own server. They’re an advanced feature and are off by default for everyone.

  • On a managed organization, an administrator can add modules to a policy under Remote modules in the policy’s Developer section, so they load for everyone on that policy.
  • An administrator can also turn on Personal remote modules (“Allow members to configure their own remote modules.”). Members then add their own under Developers → Modules with Endpoint, Module Name, and Secret Key, then Add Module. The pane notes “Only add modules from trusted sources.”
  • Modules load in your chats, never in routines. In the web app, a module must be a public HTTPS server that accepts requests from Bearly’s site; the desktop app can also reach servers on your computer or local network.

If you’re an AI agent using Bearly’s interface for a person, these labels are stable places to start:

  • Sidebar: New Chat, Chat, Prompt Templates, Routines, Meetings and Recordings, the Projects list, and the account menu at the bottom with App Settings, Billing & Pro, Developers, and Organizations.
  • Composer: the message box, the model picker, and the chips beside the box: Permissions (or Full access), Connectors, and Work locally in the desktop app. Typing / opens commands such as /email, /sms, /skill, and /visualize.
  • Command menu: ⌘ K (Ctrl K on Windows and Linux), with New, New Routine, and Switch Chats.
  • Settings: the window titled Settings, with sections Chats, Settings, Desktop (desktop app only), and Developer. See Settings reference.
  • Routines: Create a routine, Draft routine, Start from scratch, Create routine, Save, and Run now.

Leave these to the person, and say so instead of acting:

  • Approval cards for actions they haven’t clearly asked for, and anything that always asks: connecting a new service, listing, reading, or deleting chats, Computer Use safety checks, People Search lookups that use the plan allowance, and routine consent cards for unattended local access and browser access.
  • Enable full access? and Start every new chat in Full access? — turn these on only when the person asks for exactly that.
  • Certificate warnings in Bearly Browser, passwords, payment details, CAPTCHAs, and the computer’s own permission prompts.
  • Sign-in codes from email, phone verification codes, and Agree & send code for texting terms.
  • Purchases and plan changes, Delete account, deleting chats or routines, and removing devices.
  • End-to-end encryption setup and the recovery phrase.

Before sending an email or text for someone, confirm the recipient and the contents: there’s no approval card, and a sent message can’t be recalled. When a feature needs the desktop app, Bearly shows Use the desktop app or Get Bearly; tell the person rather than working around it.

Your editor’s AI assistant, or any tool that accepts a custom base URL, running on Bearly’s models and billed to your Bearly plan.

Why it works: the Bearly API speaks the Chat Completions, Responses, and Messages formats, so a tool built for one of them only needs a new base URL and key. You need: an API key; on a managed organization, Developer API access allowed.

  1. Create a key under Developers → API Keys.
  2. In the tool’s model settings, set the base URL to https://api.bearly.ai/v1 for Chat Completions or Responses, or https://api.bearly.ai for Messages, and paste the key.
  3. Set the model to bearly-pro, or pick one from GET https://api.bearly.ai/v1/models that supports the tool’s format.
  4. Send a test prompt and check App Settings → Usage for the request (paid plans).

Swap in: bearly-fast for quick, inexpensive completions; bearly-ultra for the hardest work. If it stalls: 404 model_not_found usually means the model doesn’t support the format the tool uses; pick another from the list. 429 means 10 requests are already running; lower the tool’s parallelism.

An outside agent that answers “how do I…” questions about Bearly from the manual itself, fetching one short page instead of the whole site.

Why it works: the Markdown index lists every page with a one-line description of what it answers, and each page has a Markdown version at a predictable address. You need: an agent that can fetch web pages.

  1. Have the agent fetch https://bearly.ai/docs/manual.md and pick the page whose description matches the question.
  2. Have it fetch that page’s Markdown version, for example https://bearly.ai/docs/manual/capabilities/permissions.md.
  3. Have it answer with the page’s exact labels and steps, and link the person to the normal page.

Swap in: https://bearly.ai/docs/manual-full.txt when the agent can hold the whole manual at once; the feature guides through https://bearly.ai/llms.txt for more detail on one feature. If it stalls: if a label in the manual doesn’t match what the person sees, their organization may have turned that feature off, or the feature needs the desktop app or a paid plan; check What works where.