API Key: Meaning, How to Use and How to Get

API keys play a key role in making sure the connections between application services are valid and authorized. This includes authenticating both the end-user and the device using an application to make a call to another application for a specific service.

What is an API Key?

An application programming interface key (API key) is a unique identifier used to authenticate a user, developer, or calling program to an API. The program or application then calls the API or application programming interface to identify its user, developer or calling program to a website. An API key can act as a secret authentication token as well as a unique identifier. Typically, the key will come with a set of access rights for the API that it is associated with.

How Are API Keys Used?

API keys are handled by endpoints and used with applications and website interfaces usually referred to as projects by software developers. The keys are not as secure as the authentication tokens, but they do provide a layer of security in that they can identify the project behind a call.

Developers can code API keys to restrict project usage to specified environments or a range of IP addresses. This way, an extensible service proxy can reject calls without authorized access from a particular API.

How Do You Get an API Key?

When software developers want to program an API to connect one of their application services to another application service, they need to request an API key from the owner of the application service they want to connect with. Application owners who make connections to their application services available to external developers will typically publish the process for getting an API key.

1.         Log in or sign up for your account.

2.         Navigate to any API documentation page by searching for or clicking on one of the collections from the homepage.

3.         Scroll down to the “Header Parameters” section of the API console.

4.         Your API Key should be visible in the API Key field.

As you code API keys for your applications, be sure to give them the same level of protection as usernames and passwords. The keys should not be hard-coded into source code repositories. This is particularly important for mobile app development since mobile apps are easily downloaded from publishing stores. The code can be directly de-obfuscated or reverse-engineered if developers don’t use protective measures against potential cyber threats.