BYOK Setup

BYOK = "Bring Your Own Key." Connect your own provider account — OpenRouter, OpenAI, Anthropic, Groq, Mistral, Together, an Ollama server, or any OpenAI-compatible endpoint — and Nyquest sends your chat requests through it instead of running them on managed models. Your provider bills you directly and your Nyquest wallet is not debited.

Why BYOK

• Your provider's bill, not your wallet. Charges land on your provider account instead of your Nyquest balance.
• Use existing credits. If you already have $200 of OpenAI credits, use them up here.
• Your provider allowance. Both your provider’s limits and Nyquest’s account/IP request limits apply. BYOK does not remove Nyquest rate limits.
• Full model access. Some models are only available BYOK (e.g. early-access endpoints).

Adding a key

1. Open More → Providers
2. Under Connected Providers, click + Add Provider
3. Pick the provider (OpenRouter, OpenAI, Anthropic, Groq, Mistral, Together, Ollama, or Custom)
4. Paste your key. It's encrypted at rest before storage.
5. Click Save
6. On that provider's card, click Use

Step 6 is the one people miss. Saving a key does not enable BYOK. Clicking Use marks the provider Active and turns on My Provider Mode. Until you do that, your messages still run on managed models and still bill your wallet.

Only one provider is Active at a time. Clicking Use on a different card moves the Active flag to that one.

Don't use the API Keys panel for this. That panel issues Nyquest personal access tokens for your own account — it can't hold a provider key.

Where keys come from

Two more presets don't use a hosted account:

• Ollama — connects to an Ollama server by base URL rather than a provider key.
• Custom — any OpenAI-compatible endpoint, addressed by base URL. It must be a public https:// address; http://, localhost and private IP ranges are rejected.

OpenRouter is special: a single OpenRouter key gives you access to most other models through them as a proxy. If you only want one key, OpenRouter is the most flexible option.

Verifying it works

After adding a key:

1. Check the provider's card is marked Active — if it isn't, click Use
2. Click Test on the card to confirm the key itself works
3. Send any message
4. Check More → Usage — your wallet should NOT have been debited for that request

If the wallet WAS debited, BYOK didn't take effect. Go back to More → Providers: the provider has to be the Active one, and its card shows an error indicator if the key was rejected.

Removing a key

More → Providers → click the trash icon on the provider's card. Removed instantly. If that was the Active provider, BYOK stops applying and future requests run on managed models again (and re-charge your wallet).

Security

• Keys are encrypted with AES-256 at rest in the database
• Only your account can read them; they're decrypted in-memory at request time and never logged
• We never display the key after saving — just sk-...**** masked previews
• If you suspect a key is compromised, delete it here AND rotate at the provider's dashboard

Common gotchas

• OpenAI key not working: make sure your OpenAI account has at least $5 in credits and the key has chat-completions permissions
• Anthropic key not working: Anthropic requires API access to be granted on the org level — check the organization settings at console.anthropic.com
• Wrong model billing: BYOK does not automatically take priority over wallet credits. It applies only while My Provider Mode is on and that provider is the Active one — check its card under More → Providers.

Where to next

• Picking a Model — once your keys are set up
• Account & Billing articles (Phase 2b) for wallet management