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Anthropic API key

Your Anthropic API key is the one thing SILV AI can't run without. It's what lets your self-hosted instance talk to Claude — on your account, at your cost, under your control.

Where to get it

Open the API Keys section.

Click Create Key, give it a name (e.g. “SILV”), and copy the key — it's shown only once.

Billing & credits

API usage is billed by Anthropic directly to your account — SILV AI adds no markup and never sees your billing details. Make sure your Anthropic account has credits or a payment method attached, or API calls will fail.

How SILV uses your key

Direct calls — your self-hosted server calls the Claude API directly with your key. There's no middleman service in between.

Memory only — the key lives in server memory, scoped to your browser session. It's never written to disk or any database, and it's wiped when you disconnect or the server restarts.

Validated on connect — SILV pings the API once with your key, just enough to confirm it works before you start.

Your choice of model — the console's dropdown covers the Claude family: Opus 4.8 (default), Fable 5, Sonnet 5, Opus 4.7/4.6, Sonnet 4.6, Haiku 4.5, or any custom model id. Note that Fable 5 requires a 30-day data-retention setting on your Anthropic organization — if every Fable request fails with a 400, that's usually why.

More on how credentials are handled — read the security page →

Keeping costs in check

Every run is an API call — Each chat turn and each automation run (a monitor firing or a scheduled task executing) makes calls to the Claude API on your key.

Watch your monitors — A monitor matching a common word in a busy channel can trigger many runs per hour. Delete noisy monitors you no longer need — just ask SILV, or manage them from the Automations sidebar.

Tune schedule frequency — An interval task running every 5 minutes costs roughly 12× more than one running hourly. Pick the slowest cadence that still does the job.

Revoking the key

You can delete the key in the Anthropic console at any time — it stops working immediately, everywhere. Since SILV never persists it, there's nothing else to clean up: disconnecting from the dashboard already wipes it from memory.

Using OpenRouter instead

Prefer to route through OpenRouter? Switch the provider toggle on the connect screen, paste an OpenRouter key (openrouter.ai → Keys), and pick a model from the dropdown — Claude, GPT, Gemini, Grok, DeepSeek, Qwen, Kimi, Mistral, and GLM flagships are listed, with anthropic/claude-opus-4.8 as the default. Choose “Custom” to type any other slug from openrouter.ai/models — as long as it supports tool calling. Models without tool support can chat but can't operate your bots, monitors, or schedules.

The same rules apply: the key lives in server memory only, is validated with a minimal ping on connect, and every request goes straight from your machine to OpenRouter. Usage is billed to your OpenRouter account. Full OpenRouter guide →

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