> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.nextintent.ai/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # API keys > Keys for the management API: account-wide or bound to one site, viewer or admin, scopes, expiry, the 25-key limit, why a key cannot mint a key, and how to hand one to a partner or a job. An API key lets a program do what a person does in the console: read and change sites, read and write the facts sheet, read the views. Keys are minted by a person in the console (or from a console session with `POST /v1/keys`), shown once, and revoked in one call. The wire details are in [Authentication](/api/reference/authentication); this page is about choosing the right key. ## Shape `ni_live__`. The key id is the part you see in the console list and use to revoke; the secret is stored hashed and never shown again. A key minted with `env: "test"` reads `ni_test_...` and behaves identically; the prefix is for your own bookkeeping. ## Account-wide or bound to one site A key with no `site` is account-wide: it sees every site on the account. A key created with `site` set to a site id is bound: it can read and change that one site, its facts and its views, and nothing else. It cannot list the account's sites, and it cannot create or delete a site. Bind a key whenever the program only needs one site. A nightly job that pushes a store's codes to the facts sheet gets a bound key with `facts:write`; if it leaks, the blast radius is one sheet on one site. ## Role `viewer` keys can only make `GET` requests; any write answers `403 read_only`. `admin` keys can write within their scopes. Default is viewer. ## Scopes `sites:read`, `sites:write`, `facts:read`, `facts:write`. A key with no scopes listed has all four; a key with any scope listed has only those. The views (store, reasons, moments) need `sites:read`. Creating a site needs `sites:write` and an account-wide key. Nothing on the key can mint or revoke keys; that is a person's job, so a leaked key can never make itself more keys. ## Expiry and limits `expires_at` is optional and must be in the future; an expired key answers 401 and stays in the list until revoked. An account holds at most 25 live keys. `last_used_at` on the list tells you which keys are dead weight. ## Rate limit 600 requests a minute per key. The views are the heavy calls; poll the store view once a minute at most, and the moments list with `before` for paging rather than re-reading from the top. ## Handing a key to a partner Give a partner a bound key per site with the narrowest scopes that do the job and a date. A partner that runs the same integration across a roster of your sites gets one bound key per site, not one account-wide key. Revoke on the day the work ends; the key stops within a minute. ## Related * [Authentication](/api/reference/authentication) * [Keys: create](/api/reference/keys/create) * [Keys: revoke](/api/reference/keys/revoke)