Quickstart

Get an API keyCopy Anchor Link

Sign in to the console and open API Keys → Create key. The key starts with frs_ and is shown once. Export it so the snippets below pick it up:

export SR_API_KEY="frs_xxxxxxxx_xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"
export SR_BASE="https://api.sightradar.com"

Every request authenticates with Authorization: Bearer $SR_API_KEY. See Authentication for key rotation and limits.

Create a collectionCopy Anchor Link

A collection is the namespace your faces live in, for example one per event. This call is free.

curl -X POST "$SR_BASE/v1/collections" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"collection_id": "quickstart-demo"}'

{
  "collection_id": "quickstart-demo",
  "status": "active",
  "photo_count": 0,
  "face_count": 0,
  "selfie_count": 0,
  "created_at": "2026-06-22T19:40:00Z"
}

Index a faceCopy Anchor Link

Send a photo by URL (or a multipart file, or raw bytes). SightRadar detects every quality-gated face and stores its faceprint. Pass a photoId so you can find the photo later. Billable: 93 credits.

curl -X POST "$SR_BASE/v1/collections/quickstart-demo/index" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"url": "https://example.com/group-photo.jpg", "photoId": "photo-001"}'

{
  "collection_id": "quickstart-demo",
  "photo_id": "photo-001",
  "indexed": 3,
  "detected_face_count": 3,
  "rejected_face_count": 0,
  "faces": [
    { "face_index": 0, "point_id": "…", "det_score": 0.84, "min_px": 120, "bbox": { "x": 24, "y": 22, "w": 53, "h": 53 } }
  ],
  "model_version": "sr-recog-1"
}

Search with a selfieCopy Anchor Link

Search the collection with a different photo of the same person. You get the matching photo_ids back, ranked by similarity. Billable: 93 credits.

curl -X POST "$SR_BASE/v1/collections/quickstart-demo/search" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"url": "https://example.com/selfie.jpg", "limit": 10}'

{
  "collection_id": "quickstart-demo",
  "matches": [{ "photo_id": "photo-001", "score": 0.91 }],
  "photo_ids": ["photo-001"],
  "model_version": "sr-recog-1"
}

No face in the selfie? You get "reason": "no_face" with an empty match list. That is a successful, charged call, because the model processed the image. Only engine failures (502) are refunded. See Billing.

Check your walletCopy Anchor Link

Billable calls also return an X-Credits-Remaining header, so you can track spend inline.

curl "$SR_BASE/v1/wallet" -H "Authorization: Bearer $SR_API_KEY"

{ "balance_credits": 4999814 }