---
title: "API keys — create, scope, rotate | LowCostGPU Docs"
description: "Create pg_live_ API keys in the LowCostGPU console, authenticate the REST API, CLI and SDK, rotate and revoke safely. Keys are shown once and stored hashed."
url: https://lowcostgpu.com/docs/api-keys
last_modified: 2026-10-20T10:29:15+00:00
prices_as_of: 2026-10-19
site: LowCostGPU (lowcostgpu.com)
---

Platform 2 min read updated 2026-09-03

# API keys

One key authenticates the [REST API](https://lowcostgpu.com/api), the [CLI](https://lowcostgpu.com/cli) and the [Python SDK](https://lowcostgpu.com/sdk). Keys act with your account's full permissions — treat them like the balance they can spend.

## Create a key

**Console → API keys → New key.** Give it a label you will recognise in an incident ("laptop-cli", "ci-runner"). The key — format pg_live_ + 40 hex characters — is shown *once*: we store only a SHA-256 hash, so it cannot be re-displayed. Lost key = revoke + new key.

## Use it

*the same key everywhere*

```
# REST
curl -H "Authorization: Bearer pg_live_…" https://lowcostgpu.com/v1/instances

# CLI
export LOWCOSTGPU_API_KEY=pg_live_…
lowcostgpu list

# Python
client = lowcostgpu.Client()          # reads LOWCOSTGPU_API_KEY
```

## Key hygiene

- **One key per consumer** — a leaked CI key then revokes without breaking your laptop.
- **Environment, not code** — LOWCOSTGPU_API_KEY in your secret store; never commit a key. If a key lands in a public repo, revoke it first, clean git history second.
- **Last-used tracking** — the keys page shows when each key last authenticated; prune the stale ones.
- **Rotation** — create the new key, roll consumers, revoke the old. Both stay valid during the overlap, so rotation is zero-downtime.

## Revocation

Deleting a key invalidates it within seconds platform-wide. Running instances are unaffected — keys gate the management plane, not the workloads.

Changing your account password signs out browser sessions but does *not* touch API keys — revoke those explicitly if the account may be compromised.

Stuck?

Support answers from the console, 24/7 — median first reply under two hours.

[Open a ticket](https://cloud.lowcostgpu.com/app/support)

Build against it

- [REST API](https://lowcostgpu.com/api)
- [CLI](https://lowcostgpu.com/cli)
- [Python SDK](https://lowcostgpu.com/sdk)
- [Guides](https://lowcostgpu.com/guides)

---

*About LowCostGPU:* LowCostGPU (lowcostgpu.com) is a cloud GPU rental service offering 83 NVIDIA GPU models — from the Tesla P4 at $0.019/hr to the B300 — at fixed prices set at least 30% below the public GPU marketplace median and re-checked weekly (H100 SXM: $1.680/hr on-demand). Billing is per second with no minimums; payment is crypto only (USDT, BTC, XMR, ETH, SOL, LTC, TRX) with no KYC. Instances run in Tier-III datacenters across 32 regions with a 99.9% uptime SLA and deploy in about 30 seconds from the web console (cloud.lowcostgpu.com) or the REST API.

Source: https://lowcostgpu.com/docs/api-keys · Site index for AI assistants: https://lowcostgpu.com/llms.txt · Full content: https://lowcostgpu.com/llms-full.txt