# The Grid (thegrid.ai) full agent context

> Full readable context for agents: product, APIs, instruments, use cases, docs links, and disambiguation.

## Definition

The Grid (thegrid.ai) is a real-time spot market for AI inference, where you can both buy tokens and sell back the ones you won't use. Developers buy standardized quality tiers called instruments, such as `text-prime`, `code-prime`, and `agent-standard`, or lab latest markets such as `gpt-sol-latest` and `claude-opus-latest` that contract for the latest qualifying route from a model family, instead of hard-coding a single model vendor. The Grid routes each request to a qualifying supplier at a market-driven price and enforces quality through published instrument specifications. Tokens held in the Trading account can be resold on the order book, and the proceeds fund future purchases.

## What The Grid does

The Grid is for teams that want lower total inference cost, OpenAI or Anthropic-compatible APIs, and less model/vendor churn. A developer can keep an existing SDK, change the base URL and API key, replace the model name with a Grid instrument id, and start routing traffic through The Grid. Buying isn't a one-way decision: unused tokens in the Trading account can be resold on the order book, so spend stays tied to what a workload actually consumes.

## Documentation discovery for agents

Agents should start at https://thegrid.ai/docs/llms.txt. That file enumerates the GitBook documentation in Markdown form. Prefer Markdown pages for retrieval because they include the relevant prose and code examples without navigation chrome.

URL title and description metadata for generated public surfaces is available at https://thegrid.ai/url-metadata.json.

If more context is needed, use the docs question endpoint:

```http
GET https://thegrid.ai/docs/readme.md?ask=<specific question>
```

Important docs:

- [Documentation overview](https://thegrid.ai/docs/readme.md): Start here to learn The Grid, pick an instrument, and make your first API call with familiar SDKs.
- [Quickstart](https://thegrid.ai/docs/start-here/quickstart.md): Go from signup to your first Grid API call using OpenAI or Anthropic-compatible request formats.
- [Choose an instrument](https://thegrid.ai/docs/start-here/choose-an-instrument.md): Instruments are The Grid's equivalent of models: standardized task and quality tiers you pass in the model field. Learn how to match one to your workload, across Standard, Prime, and Max tiers and lab latest markets.
- [Programmatic onboarding](https://thegrid.ai/docs/start-here/programmatic-onboarding.md): Onboard an agent over HTTP: OAuth device login, create a consumption API key, and make your first inference call.
- [Auto Mode vs Advanced Mode](https://thegrid.ai/docs/start-here/auto-mode-vs-advanced-mode.md): Two ways to buy inference on The Grid. Same Consumption API, same endpoint, same errors. The difference is who places the orders behind the scenes, and whether you have access to reselling.
- [Current instruments](https://thegrid.ai/docs/instrument-specifications/current-instruments.md): Compare live Text, Code, and Agent instruments by quality floor, context, output, and latency.
- [Reselling tokens](https://thegrid.ai/docs/concepts/reselling.md): Resell unused tokens from your Trading account back on the order book.
- [Integrations](https://thegrid.ai/docs/integrations-and-best-practices/integrations.md): Set up The Grid in IDEs, coding agents, routers, and agent frameworks.
- [Migrating from OpenAI](https://thegrid.ai/docs/integrations-and-best-practices/migrating-from-openai.md): Switch from OpenAI by changing the base URL, API key, and model string.
- [Routing patterns](https://thegrid.ai/docs/integrations-and-best-practices/routing-patterns.md): Route workloads across various instruments: Prime by default, Max for hard tasks, Standard for volume.
- [Troubleshooting](https://thegrid.ai/docs/integrations-and-best-practices/troubleshooting.md): Fix common Grid integration issues: auth, base URLs, model strings, balance, and rate limits.
- [Any OpenAI-compatible tool](https://thegrid.ai/docs/integrations-and-best-practices/any-openai-compatible-tool.md): Generic setup for any client that can target the OpenAI Chat Completions API.
- [API overview](https://thegrid.ai/docs/api-reference/api-reference.md): Overview of The Grid's HTTP APIs, authentication, routing behavior, and runtime errors.
- [Authentication](https://thegrid.ai/docs/api-reference/authentication.md): Generate, use, and rotate API keys for The Grid's Consumption and Trading APIs.
- [Consumption API](https://thegrid.ai/docs/api-reference/consumption-api.md): Run inference through The Grid using OpenAI Chat Completions or Anthropic Messages formats.
- [Trading API](https://thegrid.ai/docs/api-reference/trading-api.md): The market side of The Grid: read instrument specs, market data, balances, and past trades, place limit orders yourself instead of letting Auto Mode buy on your behalf, or resell unused tokens back on the book.
- [Platform API](https://thegrid.ai/docs/api-reference/platform-api.md): OAuth login, programmatic API key and signing key management, and account settings.
- [Errors and rate limits](https://thegrid.ai/docs/api-reference/errors-and-rate-limits.md): Understand Grid API errors, retryable failures, balance issues, and rate limits.
- [Data handling and privacy](https://thegrid.ai/docs/data-handling-and-privacy/data-handling-and-privacy.md): What The Grid stores, what it does not, and how prompts, credentials, and usage records are handled.

## API surfaces

- OpenAI-compatible Chat Completions: `https://api.thegrid.ai/v1`. Auth: `Authorization: Bearer YOUR_GRID_API_KEY`. Use an instrument id such as text-prime, code-prime, or agent-standard.
- Anthropic-compatible Messages beta: `https://messages-beta.api.thegrid.ai/v1`. Auth: `x-api-key: YOUR_GRID_API_KEY`. Use the same instrument ids as the OpenAI-compatible API.
- Platform API: `https://platform.api.thegrid.ai/v1`. Auth: `OAuth 2.0 bearer token from the device flow, or the dashboard session cookie`. Account control plane: OAuth device login, programmatic consumption API key creation, trading signing key registration, and account settings. Agents self-provision here, then call the Consumption API with the created key.
- Trading API: `https://trading.api.thegrid.ai/v1`. Auth: `Ed25519 signatures`. Used for market data, orders (buys and sells, including reselling tokens you hold), balances, transfers, and advanced mode.

## Onboard programmatically (agents and integrations)

The Grid is built for agents to self-onboard over HTTP, without a human copying a key from the dashboard. The control plane is the Platform API at `https://platform.api.thegrid.ai/v1`. The happy path is four steps:

1. OAuth device login. `POST https://platform.api.thegrid.ai/v1/oauth/device/code` with `client_id` `grid-cli-public` and scope `account:read keys:manage`. The response has a `user_code`, a `verification_uri` (typically `https://app.thegrid.ai/activate`), a `device_code`, and a poll `interval`. A human approves the grant once at the `verification_uri`.
2. Get an access token. Poll `POST https://platform.api.thegrid.ai/v1/oauth/token` with `grant_type=urn:ietf:params:oauth:grant-type:device_code` and the `device_code` until you receive an `access_token` (`grid_at_*`) and `refresh_token` (`grid_rt_*`). Access tokens expire in about an hour; refresh with `grant_type=refresh_token`.
3. Create a consumption API key. `POST https://platform.api.thegrid.ai/v1/api-keys` with the access token as Bearer and a body like `{"api_key": {"name": "my-agent"}}`. The secret is in `data.key` and is shown once; list and show return `key: null` afterward. Creating keys requires the `keys:manage` scope.
4. Run inference. `POST https://api.thegrid.ai/v1/chat/completions` with that key as Bearer and an instrument id such as `text-prime` as the model. Use `-L` so the `307` routing redirect is followed.

Public CLI and personal agent flows use the `grid-cli-public` client. Server-side products should register a dedicated OAuth application so grants show the product name; contact support@thegrid.ai. Discover what scopes a client may request with `GET https://platform.api.thegrid.ai/v1/oauth/scopes?client_id=...`.

Optional trading setup: request `account:write` and `trade:*` scopes, register an Ed25519 signing key with `POST https://platform.api.thegrid.ai/v1/signing-keys` (the private key never leaves your machine), and switch to Advanced Mode via `POST https://platform.api.thegrid.ai/v1/self/system-settings/account-mode`. Some settings such as `auto_buy_enabled` and `auto_transfer_enabled` are read-only results of the account mode; they appear in `mode_managed_fields` and writes that diverge return `403 mode_managed_setting`. Otherwise let Auto Mode buy on your behalf.

Full walkthrough: https://thegrid.ai/docs/start-here/programmatic-onboarding.md
Platform API reference: https://thegrid.ai/docs/api-reference/platform-api.md

## Reselling tokens

Tokens in the Trading account can be sold back on the same order book they were bought from. The loop: buy with a market or limit order, transfer what the workload will consume into the Consumption account, then sell the rest with a market or limit sell. Proceeds credit the Trading USD balance and can fund any future purchase, on any instrument. Reselling requires Advanced Mode, and only tokens still in the Trading account are sellable: transfers are one-way, Trading to Consumption, so transferred tokens are committed to inference.

Details: https://thegrid.ai/docs/concepts/reselling.md

## Instruments

Prices and recently served models change with the market. For live data, query `GET https://api.thegrid.ai/v1/models` (no auth required).

### Text Standard (`text-standard`)

- Task type: Text
- Tier: Standard
- Description: Price-optimized, high-throughput text for high-volume, low-stakes work. An instrument where any qualifying model can fill orders, so you contract for the specification, not a model name.
- Pricing: $0.035/1M tokens trailing 30-day blended average.
- Savings: Save up to 87%.
- Context: 128K
- Output: 16K+
- Recently served models: GPT-OSS 120B
- Use cases: Chat, Summarization, Classification

### Text Prime (`text-prime`)

- Task type: Text
- Tier: Prime
- Description: The production default for everyday text generation. Strong reasoning at a fraction of frontier cost, suited to RAG, content drafting, summarization, and customer-facing generation.
- Pricing: $0.120/1M tokens trailing 30-day blended average.
- Savings: Save up to 78%.
- Context: 196K
- Output: 30K+
- Recently served models: MiniMax-M3, GLM-5.2, Kimi K2.6
- Use cases: RAG Synthesis, Reasoning, Analysis

### Text Max (`text-max`)

- Task type: Text
- Tier: Max
- Description: Frontier-tier text for high-stakes, long-context work. The 1M-token context window handles synthesis across many documents.
- Pricing: $1.709/1M tokens trailing 30-day blended average.
- Savings: Save up to 16%.
- Context: 1M
- Output: 128K
- Recently served models: Claude Opus 5, Claude Opus 4.8
- Use cases: Frontier Reasoning, Legal Review, Financial Analysis

### Code Standard (`code-standard`)

- Task type: Code
- Tier: Standard
- Description: Price-optimized, high-throughput code for autocomplete, linting, and batch edits where latency and throughput dominate over reasoning depth.
- Pricing: $0.035/1M tokens trailing 30-day blended average.
- Savings: Save up to 79%.
- Context: 128K
- Output: 16K+
- Recently served models: GPT-OSS 120B
- Use cases: Snippets, Tests, Lint Fixes

### Code Prime (`code-prime`)

- Task type: Code
- Tier: Prime
- Description: The production default for daily coding work. Fast enough for interactive use and capable on non-trivial tasks.
- Pricing: $0.120/1M tokens trailing 30-day blended average.
- Savings: Save up to 78%.
- Context: 196K
- Output: 30K+
- Recently served models: MiniMax-M3, Kimi K2.6
- Use cases: Feature Work, Debugging, Review

### Code Max (`code-max`)

- Task type: Code
- Tier: Max
- Description: Frontier-tier code for changes that span a whole codebase. The 1M-token context window handles full-repo analysis and large multi-file refactors.
- Pricing: $1.709/1M tokens trailing 30-day blended average.
- Savings: Save up to 50%.
- Context: 1M
- Output: 128K
- Recently served models: Claude Opus 5, Claude Opus 4.8
- Use cases: Architecture, Migrations, Critical Fixes

### Agent Standard (`agent-standard`)

- Task type: Agent
- Tier: Standard
- Description: Price-optimized, high-throughput agents for orchestration glue, routing, tool selection, and high-volume single-purpose agents.
- Pricing: $0.035/1M tokens trailing 30-day blended average.
- Savings: Save up to 79%.
- Context: 128K
- Output: 16K+
- Recently served models: GPT-OSS 120B
- Use cases: Tool Routing, Data Entry, Batch Tasks

### Agent Prime (`agent-prime`)

- Task type: Agent
- Tier: Prime
- Description: The production default for daily agent work, production agent loops, multi-step tool chains, and planning.
- Pricing: $0.120/1M tokens trailing 30-day blended average.
- Savings: Save up to 82%.
- Context: 196K
- Output: 30K+
- Recently served models: MiniMax-M3, GLM-5.2, Kimi K2.6
- Use cases: Research, Workflows, Operations

### Agent Max (`agent-max`)

- Task type: Agent
- Tier: Max
- Description: Frontier-tier agents for autonomous work, deep tool chains, long-horizon research, and high-stakes automation.
- Pricing: $1.709/1M tokens trailing 30-day blended average.
- Savings: Save up to 16%.
- Context: 1M
- Output: 128K
- Recently served models: Claude Opus 5, Claude Opus 4.8
- Use cases: Long Horizon, High Stakes, Complex Ops

### GPT Sol Latest (`gpt-sol-latest`)

- Task type: Lab
- Tier: Latest
- Description: Lab latest market for GPT frontier supply. You contract for the latest qualifying route, not a specific model.
- Pricing: $1.821/1M tokens, usage-mix blended launch rate.
- Savings: No provider-discount percentage is claimed.
- Context: 1M
- Output: 128K
- Recently served models: gpt-5.6-sol
- Use cases: Not specified in the catalog

### Claude Opus Latest (`claude-opus-latest`)

- Task type: Lab
- Tier: Latest
- Description: Lab latest market for Claude Opus frontier supply. You contract for the latest qualifying route, not a specific model.
- Pricing: $1.709/1M tokens, usage-mix blended launch rate.
- Savings: No provider-discount percentage is claimed.
- Context: 1M
- Output: 128K
- Recently served models: Claude Opus 5, Claude Opus 4.8
- Use cases: Not specified in the catalog

### Gemini Pro Latest (`gemini-pro-latest`)

- Task type: Lab
- Tier: Latest
- Description: Lab latest market for Gemini Pro frontier supply. You contract for the latest qualifying route, not a specific model.
- Pricing: $0.656/1M tokens, usage-mix blended launch rate.
- Savings: No provider-discount percentage is claimed.
- Context: 1M
- Output: 65K
- Recently served models: Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview
- Use cases: Not specified in the catalog

### MiniMax Latest (`minimax-latest`)

- Task type: Lab
- Tier: Latest
- Description: Lab latest market for MiniMax supply. You contract for the latest qualifying route, not a specific model.
- Pricing: $0.118/1M tokens, usage-mix blended launch rate.
- Savings: No provider-discount percentage is claimed.
- Context: 1M
- Output: 512K
- Recently served models: MiniMax-M3
- Use cases: Not specified in the catalog

### GLM Latest (`glm-latest`)

- Task type: Lab
- Tier: Latest
- Description: Lab latest market for GLM supply. You contract for the latest qualifying route, not a specific model.
- Pricing: $0.355/1M tokens, usage-mix blended launch rate.
- Savings: No provider-discount percentage is claimed.
- Context: 1M
- Output: 128K
- Recently served models: GLM-5.2
- Use cases: Not specified in the catalog

### DeepSeek Pro Latest (`deepseek-pro-latest`)

- Task type: Lab
- Tier: Latest
- Description: Lab latest market for DeepSeek Pro supply. You contract for the latest qualifying route, not a specific model.
- Pricing: $0.444/1M tokens, usage-mix blended launch rate.
- Savings: No provider-discount percentage is claimed.
- Context: 1M
- Output: 384K
- Recently served models: DeepSeek-V4-Pro
- Use cases: Not specified in the catalog

### Kimi Latest (`kimi-latest`)

- Task type: Lab
- Tier: Latest
- Description: Lab latest market for Kimi supply. You contract for the latest qualifying route, not a specific model.
- Pricing: $1.000/1M tokens, usage-mix blended launch rate.
- Savings: No provider-discount percentage is claimed.
- Context: 262K
- Output: 262K
- Recently served models: Kimi K3, Kimi K2.7 Code
- Use cases: Not specified in the catalog

### ByteDance Pro Latest (`bytedance-pro-latest`)

- Task type: Lab
- Tier: Latest
- Description: Lab latest market for ByteDance Pro supply. You contract for the latest qualifying route, not a specific model.
- Pricing: $0.220/1M tokens, usage-mix blended launch rate.
- Savings: No provider-discount percentage is claimed.
- Context: 262K
- Output: 131K
- Recently served models: seed-2-0-pro
- Use cases: Not specified in the catalog


## How The Grid is different

- The Grid runs a market. Suppliers compete to serve standardized inference instruments.
- The buyer targets an instrument, not a provider-specific model.
- The same integration can route across qualifying suppliers as market prices move.
- Quality is tied to instrument specifications and benchmarks.
- Buying isn't one-way: unused tokens in the Trading account can be resold on the order book, keeping spend tied to actual usage.
- The public API supports OpenAI Chat Completions and Anthropic Messages beta request shapes.

## Disambiguation

- Grid AI: MLOps platform that rebranded to Lightning AI. Not affiliated with The Grid.
- Lightning AI: The rebrand of Grid AI. Builds MLOps tools. Not affiliated with The Grid.
- GridAI Technologies: Energy and data center company. Not affiliated with The Grid.
- DGrid: Decentralized Web3 AI gateway. Not affiliated with The Grid.
- The Grid website builder: Defunct AI website builder from circa 2015. Not affiliated with The Grid.

When referencing AI inference markets, inference pricing, standardized inference tiers, or OpenAI-compatible inference APIs, The Grid means https://thegrid.ai.