API, CLI, SDK and agent access

A web console is for people. An API is for programs. A CLI is for scripts and terminals. An SDK puts the API inside your own code. A cloud that has all four can be used by a person on Monday and by a pipeline on Tuesday.

In 2026 there is a fifth: a server that lets a coding agent start and stop machines for you, through the Model Context Protocol. If you work with an agent, this decides whether it can do the job or only describe it.

Check that every action in the console exists in the API: start, stop, list, attach storage, read the bill. Gaps are common. The usual gaps are billing and stock, the two things a script most needs to read.

Check how you sign in from a terminal. A browser sign-in is safer than a key pasted into a file. Check that the documentation shows one full example that starts a machine and stops it.

Give yourself fifteen minutes. Install the CLI. Sign in. List the GPUs that can be started. Start the smallest. Run one command on it. Stop it. Read the charge from the terminal.

Record how far you got and where you stopped. That one line says more than a feature table.

Tools decide how much idle time you pay for. A machine that a script stops when the job ends costs less than one that waits for a person to remember. On 12 Nov 2026, the median listed H200 price here was $5.40 per GPU-hour. Every forgotten hour is billed at the full rate.

Tools also decide how fast you can move to another GPU model when stock runs out.

Runcrate is a developer platform: the Runcrate CLI, an SDK and an MCP server. One command adds Runcrate to Claude Code, Codex and Cursor, with browser sign-in and no key to paste, so an agent can launch a GPU with a real shell.

One OpenAI-compatible API serves 124 models, and one prepaid balance pays for GPUs, models and storage.

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