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Vathus
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Setup

BYOK setup

Create Anthropic or OpenAI keys and store them safely in Mockingbird.

Mockingbird supports bring-your-own-key for AI models. BYOK changes the model that drafts suggestions; transcription stays local by default.

How Mockingbird stores keys

Every key you paste is encrypted on-device via Electron's safeStorage, which delegates to:

  • macOS Keychain
  • Windows DPAPI
  • Linux libsecret

The ciphertext is persisted to <userData>/byok-keys.json. The plaintext key never crosses the RPC boundary from the main process to the renderer except when Mockingbird calls the AI provider you selected. Vathus does not proxy your BYOK traffic and never sees your key.

You can revoke any key at any time from Account → API keys: the entry flips back to an empty state and the encrypted value is overwritten.

Anthropic

For Claude access on the Pro and BYOK tiers.

  1. Go to console.anthropic.com and create an account.
  2. Open Settings → API Keys and click Create key.
  3. Copy the key (it starts with sk-ant-). Anthropic shows the secret only once.
  4. In Mockingbird open Account → API keys, paste the key into the Anthropic field, and click Save.
  5. The badge flips to "key stored". The router now prefers Claude for Pro-tier routing.

Anthropic charges you directly per input and output token. Mockingbird does not mark up those costs.

OpenAI

For GPT access. Either can be used as the primary BYOK provider; both can be stored simultaneously and the router will pick per-request.

  1. Go to platform.openai.com/api-keys and create an account.
  2. Click Create new secret key. Give it a name (e.g. "Mockingbird") and copy the value. It starts with sk-.
  3. In Mockingbird open Account → API keys, paste into the OpenAI field, and click Save.

Verifying a key works

The save button only validates prefix and length. The real test is starting a session: if the AI provider rejects the key, the suggestion stream fails with the provider's error message surfaced in the banner. You can then revoke and re-paste.

Switching tiers

Your Mockingbird tier and your API keys are independent:

  • Starter and Pro tiers use our routing (with BYOK overrides when keys are present).
  • BYOK tier uses your keys exclusively and bills only $3/mo for the software layer.

Changing tier from the Pricing page opens the Stripe customer portal. Your keys stay in the keychain across tier changes.