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Keeping the key secret

Keeping the API key out of terminals, command lines and chat transcripts.

api-batch-nui-public 0.1.1

API keys leak in boring ways, almost always while someone is checking or passing one: echoed to a terminal to see that it is there, given to a program as a command-line flag (visible to every user on the machine in ps), or pasted into a chat with an AI assistant, which keeps a transcript. api-batch is built so none of those are needed.

What api-batch does

  • It stores the name of the key file, never the key. config.json and every project file are safe to look at and to commit.
  • It reads the key file at run time, inside the process, and hands it to the provider SDK. The key is never printed, logged, or placed on a command line, not even by deploy, which copies the script and settings but not the key files.
  • init reports whether the key file exists; nothing reports what is in it.

What you do

Save the key without showing it. A hidden prompt, straight into a file only you can read:

mkdir -p ~/.config/api-batch/keys
(umask 077; read -rs -p "API key: " k && printf '%s' "$k" > ~/.config/api-batch/keys/research.key; unset k); echo

Check it without showing it. Mode and size are enough; the model list is a free call that proves the key works without printing it (the header goes to curl on stdin, not on the command line):

stat -c 'mode=%a bytes=%s' ~/.config/api-batch/keys/research.key     # macOS: stat -f 'mode=%Lp bytes=%z'
{ printf 'header = "x-api-key: '; tr -d '\r\n' < ~/.config/api-batch/keys/research.key; printf '"\n'; } | curl -s -o /dev/null -w 'HTTP %{http_code}\n' -K - -H "anthropic-version: 2023-06-01" https://api.anthropic.com/v1/models

HTTP 200 is a working key. 401 is not; fix the file rather than printing it.

If an agent is driving. Tell it the key file’s path, never the key. Let it run estimate freely and have it stop there: submit spends money, so a person should press it. We learned this the usual way: a sentence that merely described the submit command was read as approval, and two identical batches ran.

If it leaks anyway. Revoke the key in the provider’s console and make a new one. Creating a new key does not disable the old one.

Source: docs/secrets.md in api-batch, the same file that ships with the code.