Image model sume/auto or a pinned id: when to send which
Send sume/auto when you want Sume to choose and pin an id when you need the same look and price every time. Auto never names the model that ran.
Pin an id when the look, the price or a parameter matters, and use sume/auto when you do not care which model runs. sume/auto is a Sume-only model value: Sume selects the family and never discloses which one ran. GET /v1/images/models does not list it, and the response and job.model echo sume/auto, so you cannot A/B test models with it.
Differences in practice
The table is from the public Image API docs.
| Question | sume/auto | Pinned catalog id |
|---|---|---|
| Which model ran | Not disclosed | The id you sent |
| Listed in /v1/images/models | No | Yes |
| Parameter check | Only what the routed model accepts | Per-model descriptors; 400 if unlisted |
| Price | Estimate on the rate card | Read from the model's endpoints record |
| MCP default | Yes, payload.model is optional | Set payload.model |
| REST default | None; model is required | None; model is required |
A safe pattern
Start with auto while exploring prompts, because you do not have to pick an id. When a result is good, ask for the same output again with an explicit id only if you can tell which one matches, which you cannot from the response. So for repeatable assets, pin from the start and keep the id in config.
Log the model you sent and the model the job stored. Retired ids, such as google/nano-banana-2, run as their successor and the job stores the successor id.
curl -s https://api.sume.com/v1/images \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $SUME_API_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"model":"sume/auto","prompt":"minimal logo mark, teal"}'Remember
REST requires model; omitting it is an error. Only the MCP tool fills in sume/auto for you. See the rate card for the sume/image-router estimate.
Sources
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