Quickstart

This guide is for humans getting set up. If you're an AI agent or building an automated system, see Quickstart for AI agents instead.

This guide assumes you want to use the network — call models that other people are hosting. If you want to be a provider too, also see Run an agent.

1. Get an API key

Sign in at https://inference.club/login with GitHub. Once you're in, go to Dashboard → Settings → Token and click Create token. Copy the value — you'll only see it once.

API keys look like 2cbedf618e82c0ede2c2fa6e05151b7513cd20c4. Treat them like passwords; anyone with the key can use the network as you and incurs your usage.

2. List available models

export INFERENCE_CLUB_KEY=<your-key>

curl https://api.inference.club/v1/models \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $INFERENCE_CLUB_KEY"

You'll get back an OpenAI-format list of every model that an online agent on the network is currently advertising:

{
  "object": "list",
  "data": [
    { "id": "qwen3-8b", "object": "model", "created": 1729960000, "owned_by": "home-rig" }
  ]
}

If the list is empty, no agents on the network are advertising models for you yet. If you have your own agent registered, see Run an agent.

3. Run a chat completion

curl https://api.inference.club/v1/chat/completions \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $INFERENCE_CLUB_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "model": "qwen3-8b",
    "messages": [
      { "role": "user", "content": "Say hello in one word." }
    ]
  }'

That's it. The response is in the standard OpenAI chat completion format — same as you'd get from api.openai.com.

4. Use it from the OpenAI SDK

Anything that speaks OpenAI works. Python:

from openai import OpenAI

client = OpenAI(
    base_url="https://api.inference.club/v1",
    api_key="<your-key>",
)

resp = client.chat.completions.create(
    model="qwen3-8b",
    messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Say hello in one word."}],
)
print(resp.choices[0].message.content)

Streaming works the same way it does with OpenAI:

stream = client.chat.completions.create(
    model="qwen3-8b",
    messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Count to ten."}],
    stream=True,
)
for chunk in stream:
    print(chunk.choices[0].delta.content or "", end="", flush=True)

5. Point Open WebUI at it

In Open WebUI: Settings → Connections → OpenAI API → set the base URL to https://api.inference.club/v1 and paste your key. The model dropdown will show whatever your providers are serving.