The Creative Engine

What Is The Creative Engine

Lamina is an agentic creative API for generating videos, movies, and images for products, brands, social, and ads. Instead of calling models directly, you call apps — packaged multi-node workflows that may internally chain image generation, video generation, LLM reasoning, compositing, upscaling, and audio synthesis. Each app has a typed input schema. You send inputs, the API handles orchestration, brand context injection, and output delivery. The engine sits between your application and the models. Your code never needs to know which providers run behind an app, how nodes are wired, or where outputs are hosted. You work with five primitives, and the engine handles everything else.

The Five Primitives

Primitive	What It Is	CMS Analogy
App	A packaged workflow with a typed input schema	Content type / document schema
Execution	One async run of an app that produces outputs	Document creation / mutation
Intelligence	Brand context, predictions, recommendations	Editorial strategy / content rules
Template	Pre-configured starting point for a content type	Content template / blueprint
Channel	A connected publishing destination	Frontend / delivery endpoint

Apps define what you can create. Executions are the act of creating. Intelligence makes the output smarter. Templates accelerate setup. Channels deliver the result. This is the full content lifecycle through one API: discover, create, evaluate, distribute.

Two Ways To Create

One call: let the engine decide

curl -X POST \
  -H "x-api-key: lma_your_api_key" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "brief": "A premium hero shot of a leather handbag on marble, warm studio lighting",
    "contentType": "product_image"
  }' \
  https://app.uselamina.ai/v1/content/create

One call. The engine resolves brand context, selects the best-fit app, maps inputs, and starts the execution. You get back a run ID and collect results the same way as any other execution. This is the path for agents and automation — go from intent to asset without manual orchestration.

Step by step: you pick the app

# 1. Discover
curl -H "x-api-key: lma_your_api_key" \
  https://app.uselamina.ai/v1/apps

# 2. Inspect
curl -H "x-api-key: lma_your_api_key" \
  https://app.uselamina.ai/v1/apps/{appId}

# 3. Execute
curl -X POST \
  -H "x-api-key: lma_your_api_key" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "inputs": {
      "Front": "https://example.com/front.jpg",
      "Location": "Studio"
    }
  }' \
  "https://app.uselamina.ai/v1/apps/{appId}/runs?webhook=https://your-server.com/callback"

You choose the app, inspect its schema, provide exact inputs. Full control over every parameter. Both paths produce the same execution object, the same output structure, and the same delivery options. The difference is who does the thinking — your code or the engine.

The Execution Lifecycle

Every creation in Lamina — whether started via content/create or apps/{appId}/runs — follows the same lifecycle:

Queued

The execution is accepted and waiting for capacity. You receive a run ID immediately.

Running

The workflow nodes are executing. For multi-step apps, individual nodes complete in sequence or parallel.

Completed or Failed

Terminal state. Outputs resolve from pending placeholders to concrete image, video, or text values.

Four ways to get results:

Method	When to use
Wait endpoint	Simplest. `GET /v1/runs/{id}/wait` blocks until done. Best for agents.
SSE stream	Real-time progress. `GET /v1/runs/{id}/stream` sends events as nodes complete.
Webhook	Production workloads. Pass `?webhook=<url>` at execution time. Signed with ED25519.
Polling	Fallback. Poll `GET /v1/runs/{id}` every 3-5 seconds.

See Handle Long-Running Executions for implementation patterns.

Intelligence Layer

The intelligence endpoints are the editorial brain of the engine. They make creation smarter over time.

Endpoint	What it provides
`GET /v1/intelligence/brand-context`	Brand DNA, visual guidelines, tone, creative constraints
`POST /v1/intelligence/predict`	Performance prediction before you publish
`GET /v1/intelligence/recommendations`	Actionable content suggestions based on brand and performance data
`GET /v1/intelligence/trends`	Trend signals for your categories

When you use POST /v1/content/create, the engine queries brand context automatically and injects it into the execution. When you use the step-by-step path, you can fetch brand context yourself and use it to inform your input choices. Intelligence is what separates a creative engine from a model proxy. The engine knows your brand, predicts what will perform, and recommends what to create next.

Distribution Layer

Channels are connected publishing destinations — social accounts, CDN endpoints, storage targets.

Endpoint	What it does
`GET /v1/publishing/channels`	List connected social accounts and destinations
`POST /v1/publishing/publish`	Publish content to one or more channels
`POST /v1/publishing/transfer-asset`	Transfer assets to external CDN or storage
`GET /v1/publishing/history`	View publish history and job status

The pattern is the same as a headless CMS delivering to frontends: your content is created once, stored as structured data, and delivered to any channel from one API. No per-channel integration work on your side.

What This Means For Agents

The Creative Engine is designed for programmatic consumption. If you are building an agent — whether with Claude, GPT, LangChain, or your own orchestrator — the API gives you:

Schema-first discovery. Every app has a typed input contract you can inspect at runtime. No guessing.
Async-native execution. Executions return immediately. Results arrive via webhook, SSE, wait endpoint, or polling.
Intelligence grounding. Brand context and performance data are API-accessible. Your agent can make informed creative decisions, not blind ones.
One-call creation. POST /v1/content/create goes from a text brief to a finished asset without manual app selection or input mapping.
Structured outputs. Every result is typed (image, video, text) with a stable schema. Parse once, handle every app.

If you are building an agent, start with Create Content. If you are building a product integration, start with Quick Start.

Overview

Install

Concepts

API Reference

Guides

The Creative Engine

What Is The Creative Engine

The Five Primitives

Two Ways To Create

One call: let the engine decide

Step by step: you pick the app

The Execution Lifecycle

Intelligence Layer

Distribution Layer

What This Means For Agents

​What Is The Creative Engine

​The Five Primitives

​Two Ways To Create

​One call: let the engine decide

​Step by step: you pick the app

​The Execution Lifecycle

​Intelligence Layer

​Distribution Layer

​What This Means For Agents

What Is The Creative Engine

The Five Primitives

Two Ways To Create

One call: let the engine decide

Step by step: you pick the app

The Execution Lifecycle

Intelligence Layer

Distribution Layer

What This Means For Agents