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The Docent class is the main entry point for the SDK. All API operations are methods on this client.

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Initialization

from docent import Docent

# Minimal — reads API key from a discovered config file or environment
client = Docent()

# With explicit configuration
client = Docent(
    api_key="your-api-key",
    collection_id="my-default-collection",
)

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Constructor Parameters

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api_key
str | None
API key for authentication. Falls back to the discovered config file (~/.docent/docent.env when no project-level file is found), then the DOCENT_API_KEY environment variable. See the configuration priority table for the full resolution order. Required — if no key is found, raises ValueError.
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collection_id
str | None
Stored as default_collection_id for your convenience, but SDK methods do not fall back to it automatically — you must pass collection_id explicitly to each method call. Falls back to DOCENT_COLLECTION_ID from the config file.
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api_url
str | None
Direct URL of the Docent API server. Overrides URL derived from domain. Falls back to DOCENT_API_URL environment variable.
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frontend_url
str | None
Direct URL of the Docent frontend UI. Overrides URL derived from domain. Falls back to DOCENT_FRONTEND_URL environment variable.
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domain
str | None
default:"docent.transluce.org"
Domain of the Docent instance. API and frontend URLs are derived as https://api.{domain} and https://{domain} unless overridden.
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use_https
bool
default:"True"
Whether to use HTTPS when constructing URLs from the domain.
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config_file
str | Path | None
Explicit path to a dotenv config file. If not provided, the SDK searches for project-level docent.env overrides from the current directory upward, then checks the default global config file at ~/.docent/docent.env.
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log_stream
IO[str] | None
Output stream for SDK log messages. Defaults to sys.stdout.

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Properties

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frontend_url
str
The resolved Docent frontend base URL.
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backend_url
str
The resolved Docent API base URL.
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default_collection_id
str | None
The default collection ID, if configured.

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Example: Full Configuration

from docent import Docent

client = Docent(
    api_key="your-api-key",
    collection_id="my-collection",
    api_url="https://api.my-docent.example.com",
    frontend_url="https://my-docent.example.com",
)

print(client.frontend_url)  # https://my-docent.example.com
print(client.backend_url)   # https://api.my-docent.example.com/rest