Authentication

API keys

The OpenAI API uses API keys for authentication. You can create API keys at a user or service account level. Service accounts are tied to a "bot" individual and should be used to provision access for production systems. Each API key can be scoped to one of the following,

1. Project keys - Provides access to a single project (preferred option); access Project API keys by selecting the specific project you wish to generate keys against.
2. User keys - Our legacy keys. Provides access to all organizations and all projects that user has been added to; access API Keys to view your available keys. We highly advise transitioning to project keys for best security practices, although access via this method is currently still supported.

Remember that your API key is a secret! Do not share it with others or expose it in any client-side code (browsers, apps). Production requests must be routed through your own backend server where your API key can be securely loaded from an environment variable or key management service.

All API requests should include your API key in an Authorization HTTP header as follows:

Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY

Organizations and projects (optional)

For users who belong to multiple organizations or are accessing their projects through their legacy user API key, you can pass a header to specify which organization and project is used for an API request. Usage from these API requests will count as usage for the specified organization and project.

To access the Default project in an organization, leave out the `OpenAI-Project header

Example curl command:

curl https://api.openai.com/v1/models \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $OPENAI_API_KEY" \
  -H "OpenAI-Organization: YOUR_ORG_ID" \
  -H "OpenAI-Project: $PROJECT_ID"

Example with the openai Python package:

from openai import OpenAI

client = OpenAI(
  organization='YOUR_ORG_ID',
  project='$PROJECT_ID',
)

Example with the openai Node.js package:

import OpenAI from "openai";

const openai = new OpenAI({
    organization: "YOUR_ORG_ID",
    project: "$PROJECT_ID",
});

Organization IDs can be found on your Organization settings page. Project IDs can be found on your General settings page by selecting the specific project.