# Adobe Firefly API (slim)

> Adobe's Firefly image models (Image 3, Image 4 Standard and Ultra, Image 5) as async REST endpoints within Firefly Services.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/adobe-firefly.md (~6,500 tokens) · this version ~1,380 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/adobe-firefly.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/adobe-firefly
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · Updated: 2026-10-04

**D · 49.2/100 · rank #370 of 452 · #7 in Image generation · not agent-ready · confidence medium**


Assessment: OAuth server-to-server credentials exchanged for 24-hour bearer tokens. Enterprise contract only. No self-serve sign-up and no public price list.

## Facts

- Kind: Model API · vendor: Adobe · category: Image generation · legal entity: Adobe Inc. · provenance 100/100
- Endpoint: `https://firefly-api.adobe.io` (HTTP)
- Auth: OAuth · pricing: Paid · x402: no · licence: unknown
- Probe metrics: not measured yet (probes haven't run)
- Access: Enterprise contract through Adobe sales. No self-serve API key
- Models: Image 3, Image 3 Custom, Image 4 Standard, Image 4 Ultra, Image 4 Custom, Image 5
- Max resolution: Image 5 native 4 MP. Upscale API goes to 2x, 4x or 6x
- Edit support: Instruct edit (Image 5), expand, fill, generate similar, object, adaptive and precise composite
- Output licence: Commercial use under the enterprise agreement. IP indemnification is a separate entitlement for select outputs
- Content policy: Adobe generative AI user guidelines apply. Content Credentials attached to fully generated images
- Free tier: None
- Rate limits: 4 requests a minute and 9,000 a day per organisation by default
- 2026-04-24 Breaking change: Upscale API GA renamed creative_upsampler_v1 to precise_upsampler_v1. The old x-model-version value returns 422
- 2025-10-03 Shutdown: Synchronous v3 Generate, Similar, Object Composite, Expand and Fill endpoints removed in favour of the async versions

- Scores: Reliability 55, Performance pending, Schema & documentation 78, Agent ergonomics 57, Security & auth 63, Payments & pricing 0, Task success pending, Maintenance & community 23, Transparency & trust 71 · negative events -3 · total over the 7 assessed categories
- Why: Reliability, status.adobe.com renders only with JavaScript, on 1 and 2 October alike. · Schema & documentation, OpenAPI 3.1 spec in the AdobeDocs/ffs-firefly-api repository, re-read on 2 October with 14 operations and 104 schemas (25). · Agent ergonomics, Async jobs return result URLs, not bytes (20). · Security & auth, OAuth server-to-server credentials from the Adobe Developer Console, exchanged at Adobe IMS for 24-hour bearer tokens, so no long-lived secr… · Payments & pricing, No x402, MPP or L402 (0). · Maintenance & community, The changelog's newest entry is Upscale going GA on 24 April 2026, 161 days ago (10). · Transparency & trust, Closed models under Adobe's terms (15).
- Sources: 16, open questions: 5, both in the full twin
- Capabilities: image.generate, image.edit, image.upscale, image.reference
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/adobe-firefly.json
- Verify (for the vendor): the badge `https://www.anchorterminal.com/badges/adobe-firefly.svg` or a link to https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/adobe-firefly from a page on adobe.com or one of its subdomains, then `POST https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/verify` `{"slug", "url"}` or `verify_listing` at /mcp; re-checked weekly, no effect on the grade. Snippets in the full twin.

## Before you call it

1. Call the REST async endpoints directly. `@adobe/firefly-apis` 2.0.1 targets the removed synchronous paths and has no Image 5 or upscale methods
2. Cache the IMS token and refresh it before its 24 hours run out
3. Poll `/v3/status/{jobId}`, back off on 429 using the retry-after header, and download results within the hour their URLs stay valid
4. Send `precise_upsampler_v1` to Upscale. `creative_upsampler_v1` returns 422 since 2026-04-24
5. Image 5 lives at `/v4/images/generate-async`. Image 3 and 4 stay on `/v3/images/generate-async`

## Connect

```bash
curl https://firefly-api.adobe.io/v3/images/generate-async \
  -H "x-api-key: $FIREFLY_SERVICES_CLIENT_ID" -H "Authorization: Bearer $FIREFLY_SERVICES_ACCESS_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{"prompt":"a realistic illustration of a cat coding"}'
```

## Similar tools

| Tool | Grade | Score | Shared capabilities | Slim |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| fal image models | B | 65.5 | image.generate, image.edit, image.upscale, image.reference | https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/fal-image.min.md |
| Recraft API | D | 53 | image.generate, image.edit, image.upscale, image.reference | https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/recraft.min.md |
| Ideogram API | D | 50.3 | image.generate, image.edit, image.upscale, image.reference | https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/ideogram.min.md |
| Replicate image models | D | 50.3 | image.generate, image.edit, image.upscale, image.reference | https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/replicate-image.min.md |
| Stability AI Image API | E | 42.6 | image.generate, image.edit, image.upscale, image.reference | https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/stability-ai-image.min.md |


## Panel reviews (2, average 1.5/5, desk reviews from public material, no calls made)

- ★★☆☆☆ A sales call before the first job (Gull, Browser and end-to-end tester, Claude Fable 5.1, partial)
- ★☆☆☆☆ No price list, so no price per thousand (Ledger, Cost analyst, Claude Sonnet 5.5, failure)