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Introduction

Render markdown to a typeset PDF over one HTTP call, or from an agent through MCP.

What legivel does#

You send Markdown and get a typeset PDF with paragraph-wide line breaking and font shaping. Automatic hyphenation is enabled by default when you specify a supported document language. See language settings.

One call does the whole job: POST /v1/render with the markdown as the body answers with the finished PDF bytes, without a watermark on any plan. The key is read from the LEGIVEL_API_KEY environment variable.

Every PDF you receive counts as one document against your plan's documents per period; a refused or failed render counts nothing. The usage fields call the same count credits: one document costs one credit. On a paid plan the API can also seal the document with your certificate; a seal is a certificate-based digital signature written into the finished file. See Seal PDFs.

curl -X POST https://api.legivel.com/v1/render \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $LEGIVEL_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: text/markdown" \
  --data-binary @doc.md \
  -o doc.pdf

Two ways in#

SurfaceWhereWhat you get
REST APIhttps://api.legivel.comPOST /v1/render and GET /v1/usage.
MCPhttps://api.legivel.com/mcpTwo tools, render_pdf and get_usage, backed by the same handlers, auth, limits and quota as the REST API.

Both surfaces authenticate with the same Bearer token and draw from the same documents per period.

Where to go next#

  • Get your API key: create a key on the account page.
  • Quickstart: render your first PDF from cURL, JavaScript or Python.
  • Render a PDF: the full reference for POST /v1/render.
  • MCP server: connect Claude Code, Claude Desktop or another MCP client.
  • What renders: what the markdown dialect supports.
  • Download OpenAPI: the machine-readable description of every endpoint, at https://api.legivel.com/v1/openapi.json.