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Every request to the AI Gateway carries a virtual key. A virtual key starts with sk-alt- and tells Altrum which organization, AI system or person the request belongs to. You create it in Altrum and see its value once.

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Send your key

Send it as a bearer token, as every OpenAI and Anthropic SDK does when you give it an API key:
Altrum also reads the key from the headers other clients use, so you do not have to change how a client sends it: Keep the key out of source code. Read it from an environment variable or your secret store.

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When the key is refused

A key is inactive when someone switched it off in Altrum, and expired when its end date passed. See Virtual keys. Every other refusal is listed in Errors.

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Send your own provider key

Some teams want an application to use its own model provider key rather than the one stored in Altrum. This is off unless an owner or admin switches on Callers may send their own provider key under AI Gateway, Settings, Access. When it is on, send three things:
  • x-alt-direct-key: true;
  • your provider key in Authorization: Bearer, x-api-key or x-goog-api-key;
  • your virtual key in x-alt-vk, so Altrum knows whose request it is.
Altrum never stores or logs a provider key sent this way. Guardrails, budgets and limits still apply.