Authentication

Every request to the Privian gateway is authenticated with a gateway API key. Bring-your-own-key (BYOK) credentials for downstream providers are configured separately and never travel in the request.

Header

Send your key as a bearer token:

http
Authorization: Bearer sk-gw_live_<random>

Or as x-api-key — both are accepted.

Key format

  • sk-gw_live_… — production key.
  • sk-gw_test_… — non-production key for local or staging use.

The portion after the prefix is opaque randomness — do not parse it. The full key is shown once at creation and cannot be retrieved again.

Storage

  • Privian stores only sha256(key), looked up in constant time on every request.
  • The plaintext key never leaves your machine after creation.
  • Revoking a key takes effect immediately on the next request.

Errors

  • Missing, unknown, or revoked key → 401 unauthorized.
  • Auth is checked before validation, quota, masking, or any provider call.

BYOK provider credentials

Privian forwards masked prompts to providers using credentials configured per organisation in the dashboard — never in the request body. See Concept: BYOK.

Rotation

Create a new key, deploy it to your application, then revoke the old key. Privian does not support in-place rotation of an existing key value.

Related