Create an API Key

An API key authenticates every request to the Autorender API. Create and manage yours in the dashboard.

An API key authenticates every request you make through code — the REST API, the SDKs, secure uploading and delivery, video encoding, and document conversion. It’s unique to your workspace and confidential: anyone who has it can act as your workspace, so treat it like a password.

Only workspace owners can create or delete keys. One key is enough to start; create more when you want a separate key per app or environment, since deleting one leaves the others working.

Create a key

1. Open the API Keys page.

   Sign in to Autorender and click API Keys under Configurations in the sidebar.

2. Click Add secret key and save the key immediately.

   Autorender generates the key at once and shows it a single time in a Save Your API Key dialog. Click Copy or Download, then confirm I’ve Saved It.

   This is the only time the full key is shown. Autorender stores only a hash of it, so it cannot be displayed again — closing the dialog without saving means you have to create a new key.

Use the key in your code

1. Store the key as an environment variable.

   Never hardcode the key. Put it in .env:

   .env

   AUTORENDER_API_KEY=your-api-key
   

   Add .env to .gitignore if it isn’t already there, so the key never lands in version control. Most frameworks do this for you by default.

2. Pass the key to your client.

   import Autorender from '@autorender/nodejs';
   
   const client = new Autorender({
     apiKey: process.env.AUTORENDER_API_KEY,
   });
   

   Every backend SDK follows this same pattern — see SDKs for your language.

3. Or call the API directly without an SDK.

   Send the key as a header on any request:

   Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY
   

   x-api-key: YOUR_API_KEY
   

Delete a key

On the same API Keys page, hover over a key in the list, click the trash icon that appears, then confirm.

Deleting a key is immediate and permanent. Anything still using it starts failing with 401 errors right away — rotate to a new key first if the key is live in production.

Next steps

Quickstart

Turn your key into a transformed delivery URL.

Authentication reference

Header formats and error responses for the API.