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Managing API keys across agents, devices, and teams

How to manage API keys across a fleet of agents and devices: one vault, revocable device tokens, per-agent budgets, and one-click rotation.

Updated 2026-08-22Reading time 5 min

One vault, many devices

Instead of a key on every laptop, keep one key in the vault and issue each device a token. A device that gets lost stops working the moment you revoke its token — the provider key stays intact and untouched.

Per-agent budgets

Two agents should not share one bottomless key. Give each agent a daily or per-run token budget, and the platform stops the expensive one before it burns through the shared allowance.

Approvals for sensitive actions

For destructive or expensive steps you can require a confirmation. This is less about the key and more about the agent’s behaviour, but it closes the loop: a stolen token alone cannot trigger a wipe without a human in the chain.

Rotation without the pain

Rotation means pasting a new key once. Because devices hold tokens rather than the key, they pick up the change automatically on the next request. You never SSH into a box to edit a config.

What a good setup looks like

  1. Keys in the vault, never on disk.
  2. One token per device, each independently revocable.
  3. Budgets and approval rules per agent.
  4. An audit trail showing every call and its cost.
  5. Rotation scheduled, not only after incidents.