How to Get an Anthropic API Key

Steps

1. Open the Anthropic Console API keys page and select the workspace that should own the credential. (verified 2026-08-14)
2. Choose Create Key, give it a descriptive name, and keep workspace membership and permissions limited to the required team. (verified 2026-08-14)
3. Copy the key immediately; Anthropic shows the full secret value only at creation. (verified 2026-08-14)
4. Add or confirm billing for the workspace before production use; usage is attributed to that workspace and organization. (verified 2026-08-14)
5. Store the value as ANTHROPIC_API_KEY in a server-side environment or secret manager, never in source control or browser code. (verified 2026-08-14)

Key facts

Rotate or revoke a key

First API call

javascript example using claude-haiku-4-5; the key stays in ANTHROPIC_API_KEY and is never included in the snippet.

const client = new Anthropic({ apiKey: process.env.ANTHROPIC_API_KEY });

const response = await client.messages.create({
  model: MODEL,
  max_tokens: 1024,
  messages: [{ role: 'user', content: 'Say hello in one sentence.' }],
});

const block = response.content[0];
console.log(block.type === 'text' ? block.text : '');

FAQ