Connect your app to Replicate

Connect your app to Replicate, a platform for running open-source AI models, to generate images, video, audio, and text from your Lovable app.

Replicate is a platform for running open-source AI models through a single API. The Replicate connector lets your Lovable app run thousands of models for image, video, audio, and text generation. It’s designed for apps that need a specific open-source model beyond Lovable’s built-in AI, such as a particular FLUX fine-tune, a community video model, or a specific Whisper variant.

Replicate is available as an app + chat connector: one shared connection that works in the chat while you build and in your published apps.

With Replicate, your app can:

• Generate images, video, and audio with open-source models such as FLUX and Stable Diffusion
• Transcribe speech with models such as Whisper
• Generate text with open language models
• Start from an uploaded image, for example to animate a product photo into a video

Replicate is a good fit when your app needs a specific model that isn’t available through Lovable’s built-in AI.

Common use cases and example apps

These examples show what you can build with Replicate, each with a prompt to start from.

Example app	Example prompt	Description
Text-to-image generator	Use Replicate and build an app that turns text prompts into images with FLUX.	Generate images from text prompts on demand. The app sends prompts to a Replicate image model and shows the results.
Image-to-video tool	Use Replicate and build a tool that animates a product photo into a short video clip.	Turn still images into short video clips. The app uploads a source image, runs an image-to-video model, and plays back the generated clip.
Audio transcription app	Use Replicate and build an app that transcribes uploaded audio with Whisper.	Transcribe spoken audio into text. The app sends recordings to a transcription model and returns the transcript in the app.
Image editing tool	Use Replicate and build a tool that removes backgrounds from uploaded product photos.	Edit and enhance images automatically. The app runs an image-processing model and returns the edited file.
Avatar and sticker generator	Use Replicate and build an app that creates custom avatar stickers from a selfie.	Create personalized image content from uploads. The app feeds a photo to a generation model and produces styled results.
Custom model app	Use Replicate and build an app that runs our fine-tuned model on customer inputs.	Serve your own fine-tuned models inside your app. The app calls a model you’ve trained on Replicate and shows the output.

How to connect Replicate

Who can create Replicate connections depends on your plan and workspace settings. App + chat connectors are available by default on Free, Pro, and Business plans. On Enterprise plans, they are effectively disabled at first: Who can create connections and clients defaults to No one until an admin changes it in Connectors → Admin settings → App + chat connectors.

You can create multiple Replicate connections using different API tokens, which is useful for separating environments (for example, development and production) or managing rate limits.

When the connection is created, you can link it to the projects where you want to use it. Anyone building in a project can ask Lovable in chat to link their project to it.

Prerequisites

Before connecting Replicate, make sure you have:

• A Replicate account
• A Replicate API token
• Permission to create connections in your Lovable workspace (see Who can create connections and clients)

All predictions run through this connector are billed by Replicate based on the model and how long each run takes. Billing and quota are handled directly by Replicate, not Lovable.

Step 1: Get a Replicate API token

A Replicate API token lets your Lovable app authenticate with the Replicate API.

To create a Replicate API token:

1. Open your Replicate account

   Sign in to Replicate.

2. Open API tokens

   Go to Account settings → API tokens.

3. Create a token

   Click Create token and give it a descriptive name, for example Lovable integration.

4. Copy the token

   Copy the token (it starts with r8_) and store it securely.

Your API token functions like a password. Keep it secure and never share it publicly. You’ll need it in the next step.

See Replicate documentation for more: API tokens and security.

Step 2: Connect Replicate to Lovable

You can create multiple connections using different API tokens.

1. Open Replicate in Connectors

   Open Connectors and select Replicate. For the other places to open the catalog from, see Where to find connectors.

2. Add a connection

   Click Add connection.

3. Configure the connection

   1. Display name: name the connection, for example Replicate Prod. This name is only used inside Lovable to identify the connection.
   2. API token: paste your Replicate API token (it starts with r8_). Get value next to the field opens the Replicate API tokens page.
4. Choose who can use this connection

   Under Sharing, the connection is private to you by default and shows a Private label. To share it, click Share with others. Then add workspace members by email, or click Invite entire workspace to make the connection available to everyone in your Lovable workspace.

   See Who can use connections and clients for more information.

5. Connect

   Click Connect. Lovable verifies the token against the Replicate API before saving the connection.

When connected, anyone building in a project can ask Lovable in chat to link their project to Replicate (based on configured connection-level access). Your Lovable apps can then generate images, video, audio, and text with Replicate models.

Limitations

The Replicate connector cannot:

• Keep generated files at the Replicate URL. Output URLs expire after about an hour, so the app must save generated images, video, and audio to its own storage. Ask Lovable to store outputs when you build the feature.
• Rotate API tokens automatically. To rotate, create a new token in Replicate and update the Lovable connection.
• Support per-end-user Replicate login. Each connection represents a single Replicate account shared across all projects linked to it.

Troubleshooting

If predictions fail, the section below covers the most common error and how to resolve it.

Predictions fail with 402 "Insufficient credit"

The Replicate account behind the connection has no credit. Add billing or credit at replicate.com/account/billing, then run the prediction again. The API token itself is still valid.

Manage your Replicate connection

Connections are managed from Connectors: select Replicate, then open the connection.

• Unlink projects to remove Replicate access from specific projects while keeping the connection available for others. See Unlink projects from a connection for the steps.
• Delete the connection to remove it from the workspace entirely. Deleting is permanent. It removes the credentials from all linked projects, and app features that use Replicate stop working until a new connection is added. See Delete a connection for the steps and who can delete.