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Tasks

Store a BYOK key

Bring Your Own Key: you give knowmind your own AI-provider key, which knowmind uses for internal enrichment and indexing tasks. The key is stored encrypted with AES-256-GCM and never shared with third parties.

Audience
Private, Pro, Business and Business API plans (Private is limited to one provider at a time). Required as soon as you want knowmind to make LLM calls itself — for example to enrich document uploads or run its own agents.

Prerequisites

  • Active knowmind account on a plan that unlocks BYOK
  • Active API key with a supported provider (Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Mistral, Aleph Alpha, Azure OpenAI, Ollama, LM Studio, vLLM)
  • Sufficient credit or billing with the provider

Steps

  1. 1

    Obtain a provider key

    In your AI provider's account, create a new API key. Most providers show the value once — copy it immediately into a secure buffer.

    Outcome: You have the key on your clipboard.

  2. 2

    Store it in the knowmind dashboard

    In the knowmind dashboard, navigate to BYOK Keys. The UI label is "BYOK Keys".

    Click "Add new key". Choose the provider, enter a description (e.g. "Anthropic production"), paste the key, optionally pick a default model and save.

    Outcome: The key appears in the list with a masked value (e.g. sk-ant-***-xx7K) and a creation date.

  3. 3

    Set provider order (optional, from Pro)

    If you register multiple providers in parallel you can set a preferred order. knowmind tries the first reachable provider. Useful if you prefer a local stack (Ollama, LM Studio) and want a cloud provider as a fallback.

  4. 4

    Smoke test

    Upload a document (see Upload documents). If knowmind enriches the document (entity extraction, summary), it uses the stored key — an entry appears in the AI usage cockpit.

    Outcome: In the dashboard, under AI usage cockpit, the call is visible with provider, model, token count and cost.

Verify the result

  • The key appears in the BYOK Keys list with a masked value.
  • A test call (document upload with enrichment) creates an entry in the AI usage cockpit.
  • The audit log records "AI key stored" with date and provider.

Troubleshooting

Error messageCauseResolution
Save button stays disabledRequired field missing, or your plan only allows a single provider and one is already stored.Fill in required fields. On Private, only one provider is allowed at a time — delete the existing one first or move to Pro / Business.
Key is rejected as invalidCopy-paste typo, expired or revoked key material.Verify the key at the provider, create a new one if needed and store it again.
Enrichment does not run, no cockpit entryProvider endpoint unreachable or quota exceeded.Check the provider's status page (e.g. status.anthropic.com). If quota is the issue, raise the limit at the provider.
Key entry disappears after a short whilePlan caps providers to one (Private) — adding a new one overwrites the old.Move to Pro or higher to keep multiple providers in parallel.

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