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DeepSeek API key setup

Open-weight frontier models (V3, R1, V4 Pro) at aggressive unit pricing. Hosted at platform.deepseek.com.

Get your key

  1. Open the DeepSeek API keys page: platform.deepseek.com/api_keys
  2. Create an account and generate an API key.
  3. Paste it into the Dracon key manager — stored encrypted (AES-256-GCM), used browser-direct, works in every Dracon tool.

Free tier

Yes. Free API access to DeepSeek chat (rate-limited); aggressive paid-tier pricing (V4 Flash from $0.14/$0.28 per M tokens as of the 2026-07-31 public beta). no credit card required

Rate limits: See platform.deepseek.com; paid tiers advertise quota per 5h window.

Connection details

Base URL
https://api.deepseek.com/v1
API shape
OpenAI-compatible
Env var
DEEPSEEK_API_KEY
Models
deepseek-chat, deepseek-reasoner
Model lineup
DeepSeek V3, DeepSeek R1, DeepSeek V4 Pro, DeepSeek V4 Flash
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