Authentication

Every API request must be authenticated with an Inferel API key.

Creating and managing keys

Keys are created in the console under API Keys. Each key belongs to your organization; you can create multiple keys (for example, one per application or environment), attach per-key rate limits, and revoke keys independently.

The full key is displayed once at creation time — copy it then. Afterwards the console shows only the last four characters.

Using your key

Pass the key as a Bearer token in the Authorization header:

curl https://inference.inferel.ai/v1/models \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $INFEREL_API_KEY"

The API also accepts the key via the x-api-key header, which is convenient for Anthropic-style clients using the /v1/messages endpoint:

curl https://inference.inferel.ai/v1/messages \
  -H "x-api-key: $INFEREL_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"model": "anthropic/claude-sonnet-4.6", "max_tokens": 256, "messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "Hi"}]}'

Authorization: Bearer takes precedence if both are supplied.

Key security

• Treat keys like passwords: never commit them to source control or expose them in client-side code. Use the INFEREL_API_KEY environment variable on servers.
• Rotate keys by creating a new one and revoking the old one in the console.
• Buying, selling, or transferring API keys is prohibited by the Terms of Service.

Authentication errors

Status	Meaning
401 Unauthorized	The key is missing, malformed, revoked, or invalid.
503 Service Unavailable	Authentication is temporarily unavailable on our side — retry with backoff; your key is fine.

{
  "error": {
    "message": "Invalid API key"
  }
}

See Errors for the full error model.