Files & uploads

Many generations take file inputs — reference images, inpainting masks, poses, depth maps, or audio. You upload a file once, then pass its file_id into generation requests.

Upload flow

Uploads go directly to storage with a resumable upload. You request a signed URL, then upload the bytes yourself.

1. Request an upload URL

   curl -X POST https://api.app.layer.ai/api/v1/workspaces/$WORKSPACE_ID/files/upload-url \
     -H "Authorization: Bearer $LAYER_TOKEN" \
     -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
     -d '{ "content_type": "image/png" }'
   # → { "file_id": "…", "upload_url": "https://storage.googleapis.com/…", "content_type": "image/png", "source_type": "asset" }

2. Start a resumable session by POSTing to upload_url with the x-goog-resumable: start header; the response’s Location is your session URI.

3. Upload the bytes with a PUT to the session URI.

Caution

The upload_url expires in 15 minutes — request it right before uploading.

Supported types & sizes

Type	Content types	Max size
Image	image/png, image/jpeg, image/webp	64 MB
Video	video/mp4	64 MB
Audio	audio/wav, audio/mpeg	64 MB
Archive	application/zip	100 MB

Using files in a generation

Pass the returned file_id into a generation request. Reference images and other guidance go in guidance_files; an inpainting mask goes in mask (request it with source_type: "mask", and it must be an image):

{
  "model_id": "MODEL_ID",
  "parameters": {
    "prompt": "replace the sky with aurora",
    "guidance_files": [{ "file_id": "FILE_ID" }],
    "mask": { "file_id": "MASK_FILE_ID" }
  }
}

Layer resolves each file_id to the stored object internally — you don’t pass URLs.

Downloads

There is no download endpoint. Generated outputs are returned as URLs in the run result (see Async jobs); fetch those directly.