Developer

Rescale exposes the platform through three programmable entry points: the REST API, the rescale-cli command-line tool, and the Rescale MCP Server for AI agents. Use them to submit jobs programmatically, build automations, and integrate Rescale into your own tools.

Pick the entry point that matches how you work, then use the rest of this section for reference.

Choosing an entry point

• REST API. A versioned HTTP API covering jobs, workflows, files, storage, users, and billing. Use it when you need full control, want to embed Rescale into another system, or are building your own tooling. See REST API.
• rescale-cli. A Java-based client you install locally. It wraps the API with ergonomic commands for submitting jobs, uploading and syncing files, and checking job status from scripts. See CLI.
• MCP Server. A Rescale-hosted server that exposes Rescale capabilities to MCP-compatible AI clients such as Claude Desktop, Claude Code, ChatGPT and Codex. You connect over Streamable HTTP and sign in with OAuth, so no API key is involved. Use it when you want a natural-language interface to the platform. See MCP Server.

All three authenticate with a Rescale API key that you generate from your profile, so start there regardless of which surface you choose.

Automations are the fourth place you write code, and the one that works the other way round: instead of reaching into Rescale from outside, your script runs on the job's own cluster, at a point in the job's lifecycle that you choose.

Generating an API key

You create API keys in the Rescale web UI. Hover your email at the bottom of the left sidebar, open Preferences, and go to the API tab. Click Add API Key to create a new key. You can create as many keys as you need, and deleting a key takes two clicks. By default keys never expire, but your organization can set a max lifetime policy (for example, 90 days) that applies to keys created after the policy takes effect.

Working in an admin portal instead? Those are still on the earlier interface, where the same place is reached from the account menu at the top right and is called User Profile Settings. See User Settings.

API keys hold the full permissions of the user who owns them. Treat them like passwords: store them in a secret manager or an environment variable, never commit them to source control, and rotate them if you suspect exposure.

Set your key as an environment variable so the CLI and your scripts can pick it up automatically:

export RESCALE_API_KEY=your-api-token-here

On Windows:

set RESCALE_API_KEY=your-api-token-here

Regional platforms

Rescale operates several regional platforms (see platform regions). Client tools default to the US platform at platform.rescale.com. If your account lives on another platform, direct requests there explicitly.

Region	Base URL
United States (commercial)	https://platform.rescale.com
Europe	https://eu.rescale.com
Japan	https://platform.rescale.jp
Korea	https://kr.rescale.com
ITAR	https://itar.rescale.com
FedRAMP	https://itar.rescale-gov.com

Pick your platform to see just your values, here and across the docs:

For the CLI, pass the URL with -X. For direct API calls, swap the host in the request URL.

Set your platform once

Pick your platform from the selector in the header. Per-region tables across the docs then show your values instead of every region's, including the SSO service provider URLs and the MCP endpoint. Code samples always use the US host, which is also what client tools use unless you override it.

Making a first call

With your API key exported, confirm it works by calling the users/me endpoint:

curl -H "Authorization: Token $RESCALE_API_KEY" \
  https://platform.rescale.com/api/v2/users/me/

You should get back a JSON payload describing your account. If you see API key is no longer active or User inactive or deleted, check the key in the UI.

From the CLI, the equivalent sanity check is:

rescale-cli -h
rescale-cli list-info -a

list-info -a returns the software catalog available to your account.

A typical end-to-end flow

Most Rescale integrations follow the same shape:

1. Upload input files with POST /api/v2/files/contents/ or rescale-cli upload.
2. Create a job by POST /api/v2/jobs/ (or let the CLI do it via rescale-cli submit), referencing the uploaded file IDs, an analysis code, and a coretype.
3. Submit the job with POST /api/v2/jobs/{id}/submit/.
4. Poll GET /api/v2/jobs/{id}/statuses/ (or run rescale-cli status) until the job reaches Completed.
5. Download results with GET /api/v2/jobs/{id}/files/ or rescale-cli sync.

The REST API section covers the conventions these calls share, and the CLI page shows the same flow as a shell script.

In this section

REST API

Authentication, conventions, and the full operation reference.

CLI (rescale-cli)

Submit and manage jobs from the terminal.

MCP Server

Expose Rescale to AI agents via the Model Context Protocol.

Automations

Writing a Python or Bash script that Rescale runs before, during, or after a job: the runtime it gets, how it takes configuration, and what it can call back into. For what automations are for and how to attach one in the UI, see Automations under Advanced Modeling & Simulation.