Bring Your Own Key

Use your own API keys with Arch Tools. When you pass your own key, tools charge just 20% of their normal credit cost — you pay the provider directly at their rates.

How it works

Pass your API key as a request header. Arch Tools detects it automatically and routes your request through your key.

curl -X POST https://archtools.dev/v1/tools/ai-generate \
-H "x-api-key: YOUR_ARCH_TOOLS_KEY" \
  -H "x-openai-key: sk-your-openai-key" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"prompt": "Summarize this article...", "model": "gpt-4o"}'

The response includes "byok": true confirming your key was used — only 20% of the normal credit cost was deducted.

Supported providers & headers

Python example

import requests

response = requests.post(
    "https://archtools.dev/v1/tools/ai-generate",
    headers={
        "Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_ARCH_TOOLS_KEY",
        "x-anthropic-key": "sk-ant-your-key",
    },
    json={
        "prompt": "Write a haiku about AI payments",
        "model": "claude-sonnet-4-6"
    }
)
data = response.json()
print(data["text"])        # The response
print(data["byok"])        # True — your key was used

Benefits of BYOK

Use your existing API contracts and pay just 20% of normal credit costs for heavy LLM usage. BYOK is ideal for agents running high-volume inference — you get Arch Tools' infrastructure (MCP server, structured outputs, error handling) with your own model billing.