---
title: Keys
description: Create, use and revoke the keys your AI tools connect with — and what a key can and can't reach.
---

<span class="vy-eyebrow">AI tools</span>

# Keys

Most tools authenticate with a key. Claude Desktop is the exception: it signs
in with your Vythos account instead, and needs no key at all.

## Create one

**AI tools → New key.** Give it a label naming the tool it's for — `Cursor`,
`Claude Code`, `agency bot` — and copy it.

The key is shown **once**. Vythos keeps only a hash of it and the first few
characters, so the page can show you `vyk_live_abc…` in the list. Nobody at
Vythos can read your key back to you; if you lose it, revoke it and make
another.

## What a key carries

**The access of the person who created it.** Not the workspace's access —
theirs. A freelancer's key reaches exactly what the freelancer reaches: the
categories they're allowed, and the clients they're assigned.

That has a useful consequence: to change what a tool can see, change that
person's access on the Members page. Nothing to re-issue.

A key does **not** let a tool:

- see another person's memory;
- add, change or retire a rule;
- act outside the workspace it was made in.

## Use one

Send it as a header:

```
Authorization: Bearer vyk_live_…
```

Per-tool configuration is on [Connect a tool](/ai-tools/connect).

## Look after it

- **One key per tool.** Then revoking one doesn't disturb the others, and
  "last used" tells you which tool is actually working.
- **Treat it like a password.** Don't paste it into a shared document, a ticket
  or a chat.
- **Keep it out of your repository.** A key in `.cursor/mcp.json` that gets
  committed is a key you should revoke. Use your tool's secret handling, or
  keep the file out of version control.
- **Revoke on a change of hands.** When a freelancer finishes, revoke their
  keys as well as their access.

## Revoke one

**AI tools**, find the key, revoke it. It stops working immediately; any tool
using it gets an authentication error on its next call.

## What you can see

For each key: its label, its first characters, when it was created, and when it
was last used. For Claude Desktop connections: the same, without a key.

"Last used" is the quickest way to spot a tool you've forgotten about. If a key
hasn't been used in months, revoke it.