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API Keys

Build Self-Serve API Key Management in Your Product

If you want your users to create, view, rotate, and delete API keys from within your own application rather than the Zuplo Developer Portal, you can build that experience using the Zuplo Developer API. This guide walks through the architecture, the API operations you need, and the security considerations for a production integration.

Architecture

A self-serve integration has three parts:

1. Your frontend — the settings page or dashboard where users manage their keys.
2. Your backend — a server-side proxy that authenticates the user with your own auth system, then calls the Zuplo Developer API on their behalf.
3. Zuplo Developer API — the management API at https://dev.zuplo.com that handles consumer and key CRUD operations.

Code
User's browser  →  Your backend API (e.g., /api/keys)  →  Zuplo Developer API
                    (auth + proxy)

The frontend calls API routes on your backend (for example, /api/keys), which authenticate the user and proxy the request to Zuplo. The frontend never communicates with the Zuplo Developer API directly.

Your backend acts as the security boundary. It verifies the user's identity using your own authentication (session cookie, JWT, etc.), determines which Zuplo consumer they map to, and proxies only the operations they are authorized to perform.

Prerequisites

Before you start, you need:

• A Zuplo project with the API Key Authentication policy configured on your routes.
• A Zuplo API key for the Developer API. Create one in the Zuplo Portal under Settings > Zuplo API Keys. More information.
• Your account name and bucket name. A bucket groups consumers for an environment — each project has buckets for production, preview, and development. Find these in the Zuplo Portal under Settings > General.
• An application with server-side code and existing user authentication.

All examples in this guide use these environment variables:

Code
# Your Zuplo Account Name
export ZUPLO_ACCOUNT=my-account
# Your bucket name (found in Settings > General)
export ZUPLO_BUCKET=my-bucket
# Your Zuplo API Key (found in Settings > Zuplo API Keys)
export ZUPLO_API_KEY=zpka_YOUR_API_KEY

Mapping users to consumers

A Zuplo consumer represents the identity behind one or more API keys. When a user in your application needs API access, you create a consumer for them in Zuplo.

The consumer's name must be unique within the bucket and is used as request.user.sub when their key authenticates a request. A good pattern is to use a stable identifier from your system, such as org_123 or user_456.

Use tags to link the consumer back to your internal data. Tags are key-value pairs that you can filter on when listing or mutating consumers. For example, storing orgId as a tag lets you scope every API call to a specific organization, which is critical for multi-tenant security.

Use metadata to store information that should be available at runtime when the key is used. This populates request.user.data and is commonly used for plan tiers, customer IDs, and feature flags.

Automating consumer creation on signup

Rather than requiring users to manually request API access, create a Zuplo consumer as part of your signup or onboarding flow. When a new organization or user is created in your system, make a server-side call to create the consumer with the appropriate metadata and tags.

Creating a consumer with a name that already exists returns a 409 Conflict, so your backend should catch this response for retry safety (for example, treating 409 as a success if the consumer already belongs to the same user).

If a consumer does not exist yet and you attempt to list its keys, the API returns a 404 Not Found. Make sure your onboarding flow creates the consumer before your frontend tries to fetch keys.

This is also the right place to sync billing information. For example, if a user upgrades their plan, update the consumer's metadata so that downstream policies and handlers see the new plan on the next authenticated request.

Core operations

The following operations cover what most self-serve integrations need. Each section shows the API call your backend should make.

Create a consumer with an API key

When a user requests API access for the first time, create a consumer and an initial API key in a single call by passing ?with-api-key=true:

Code
curl \
  https://dev.zuplo.com/v1/accounts/$ZUPLO_ACCOUNT/key-buckets/$ZUPLO_BUCKET/consumers?with-api-key=true \
  --request POST \
  --header "Content-Type: application/json" \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer $ZUPLO_API_KEY" \
  --data @- << EOF
{
  "name": "org_123",
  "description": "Acme Corp",
  "metadata": {
    "plan": "growth",
    "customerId": "cust_abc"
  },
  "tags": {
    "orgId": "org_123"
  }
}
EOF

The response includes the consumer and an apiKeys array with the generated key:

Code
{
  "id": "csmr_sikZcE754kJu17X8yahPFO8J",
  "name": "org_123",
  "description": "Acme Corp",
  "createdOn": "2026-04-16T10:00:00.000Z",
  "updatedOn": "2026-04-16T10:00:00.000Z",
  "tags": { "orgId": "org_123" },
  "metadata": { "plan": "growth", "customerId": "cust_abc" },
  "apiKeys": [
    {
      "id": "key_AM7eAiR0BiaXTam951XmC9kK",
      "createdOn": "2026-04-16T10:00:00.000Z",
      "updatedOn": "2026-04-16T10:00:00.000Z",
      "expiresOn": null,
      "key": "zpka_d67b7e241bb948758f415b79aa8exxxx_2efbxxxx"
    }
  ]
}

Display the key value to the user in your UI. Although Zuplo keys are retrievable, the standard UX pattern is to show the full key at creation time and display it masked on subsequent views.

List a consumer's API keys

To render an "API Keys" page in your settings, fetch the consumer's keys:

Code
curl \
  https://dev.zuplo.com/v1/accounts/$ZUPLO_ACCOUNT/key-buckets/$ZUPLO_BUCKET/consumers/org_123/keys?key-format=masked \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer $ZUPLO_API_KEY"

The key-format parameter controls how the key value appears in the response:

• masked — returns a partially redacted key (e.g., zpka_d67b...xxxx_2efbxxxx). Use this for the default list view.
• visible — returns the full key. Use this behind a "Reveal" button.
• none — omits the key value entirely. Use this when you only need key metadata (ID, dates, expiration).

The response:

Code
{
  "data": [
    {
      "id": "key_AM7eAiR0BiaXTam951XmC9kK",
      "createdOn": "2026-04-16T10:00:00.000Z",
      "updatedOn": "2026-04-16T10:00:00.000Z",
      "expiresOn": null,
      "key": "zpka_d67b...xxxx_2efbxxxx"
    }
  ]
}

Create an additional API key

If a consumer needs more than one active key (for example, separate keys for staging and production), create a key directly:

Code
curl \
  https://dev.zuplo.com/v1/accounts/$ZUPLO_ACCOUNT/key-buckets/$ZUPLO_BUCKET/consumers/org_123/keys \
  --request POST \
  --header "Content-Type: application/json" \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer $ZUPLO_API_KEY" \
  --data '{"description": "Production key"}'

Rotate a key

Key rotation creates a new key and sets an expiration on existing keys, giving the user a transition period to switch over. Use the roll-key endpoint:

Code
curl \
  https://dev.zuplo.com/v1/accounts/$ZUPLO_ACCOUNT/key-buckets/$ZUPLO_BUCKET/consumers/org_123/roll-key \
  --request POST \
  --header "Content-Type: application/json" \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer $ZUPLO_API_KEY" \
  --data '{"expiresOn": "2026-04-19T00:00:00.000Z"}'

This sets expiresOn on all existing non-expired keys for that consumer and creates a new key with no expiration. If expiresOn is set to a date in the past, existing keys expire immediately — effectively an instant revocation with a new replacement key. In your UI, surface the transition period clearly — for example: "Your current key will remain active until April 19. Update your integration to use the new key before then."

For guidance on choosing transition period lengths, see choosing a transition period.

Delete a key

To let users revoke a specific key immediately:

Code
curl \
  https://dev.zuplo.com/v1/accounts/$ZUPLO_ACCOUNT/key-buckets/$ZUPLO_BUCKET/consumers/org_123/keys/key_AM7eAiR0BiaXTam951XmC9kK \
  --request DELETE \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer $ZUPLO_API_KEY"

Update consumer metadata

When a user's plan changes or you need to update the information available at runtime, patch the consumer:

Code
curl \
  https://dev.zuplo.com/v1/accounts/$ZUPLO_ACCOUNT/key-buckets/$ZUPLO_BUCKET/consumers/org_123 \
  --request PATCH \
  --header "Content-Type: application/json" \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer $ZUPLO_API_KEY" \
  --data '{"metadata": {"plan": "enterprise", "customerId": "cust_abc"}}'

The updated metadata is available on the next request that authenticates with any of that consumer's keys (subject to cache TTL).

Secure with tags

Tags are the primary mechanism for enforcing ownership in multi-tenant integrations. Most Zuplo Developer API endpoints accept tag.* query parameters that filter results and — critically — reject the request if the tag does not match.

For example, if your backend knows the authenticated user belongs to org_123, append ?tag.orgId=org_123 to every call:

Code
# List only consumers belonging to org_123
curl \
  "https://dev.zuplo.com/v1/accounts/$ZUPLO_ACCOUNT/key-buckets/$ZUPLO_BUCKET/consumers?tag.orgId=org_123&include-api-keys=true&key-format=masked" \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer $ZUPLO_API_KEY"

# Delete a consumer — fails if the consumer doesn't have tag orgId=org_123
curl \
  "https://dev.zuplo.com/v1/accounts/$ZUPLO_ACCOUNT/key-buckets/$ZUPLO_BUCKET/consumers/org_123?tag.orgId=org_123" \
  --request DELETE \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer $ZUPLO_API_KEY"

This prevents one user from operating on another user's consumers, even if they somehow obtain a valid consumer name. Your backend should always derive the tag value from the authenticated session — never from the request body or query string sent by the frontend.

Backend implementation example

Here is a minimal Express.js example showing how to proxy key operations through your backend. Adapt this pattern to your framework and language.

Code
import express from "express";

const app = express();
app.use(express.json());

const ZUPLO_BASE = "https://dev.zuplo.com/v1/accounts";
const ZUPLO_ACCOUNT = process.env.ZUPLO_ACCOUNT;
const ZUPLO_BUCKET = process.env.ZUPLO_BUCKET;
const ZUPLO_API_KEY = process.env.ZUPLO_API_KEY;

// TODO: Replace with your real auth middleware
function getAuthenticatedOrg(req: express.Request): string | null {
  // Example: extract the org ID from a verified JWT set by your auth middleware.
  // In a real app, req.auth is populated by middleware like express-jwt or
  // passport after verifying the token signature and expiration.
  const auth = (req as any).auth;
  return auth?.orgId ?? null;
}

// List keys for the authenticated user's consumer
app.get("/api/keys", async (req, res) => {
  const orgId = getAuthenticatedOrg(req);
  if (!orgId) return res.status(401).json({ error: "Unauthorized" });

  const response = await fetch(
    `${ZUPLO_BASE}/${ZUPLO_ACCOUNT}/key-buckets/${ZUPLO_BUCKET}/consumers/${orgId}/keys?key-format=masked`,
    {
      headers: { Authorization: `Bearer ${ZUPLO_API_KEY}` },
    },
  );

  res.status(response.status).json(await response.json());
});

// Create a new key for the authenticated user's consumer
app.post("/api/keys", async (req, res) => {
  const orgId = getAuthenticatedOrg(req);
  if (!orgId) return res.status(401).json({ error: "Unauthorized" });

  const response = await fetch(
    `${ZUPLO_BASE}/${ZUPLO_ACCOUNT}/key-buckets/${ZUPLO_BUCKET}/consumers/${orgId}/keys`,
    {
      method: "POST",
      headers: {
        "Content-Type": "application/json",
        Authorization: `Bearer ${ZUPLO_API_KEY}`,
      },
      body: JSON.stringify({ description: req.body.description }),
    },
  );

  res.status(response.status).json(await response.json());
});

// Rotate keys for the authenticated user's consumer
app.post("/api/keys/rotate", async (req, res) => {
  const orgId = getAuthenticatedOrg(req);
  if (!orgId) return res.status(401).json({ error: "Unauthorized" });

  const response = await fetch(
    `${ZUPLO_BASE}/${ZUPLO_ACCOUNT}/key-buckets/${ZUPLO_BUCKET}/consumers/${orgId}/roll-key?tag.orgId=${orgId}`,
    {
      method: "POST",
      headers: {
        "Content-Type": "application/json",
        Authorization: `Bearer ${ZUPLO_API_KEY}`,
      },
      body: JSON.stringify({ expiresOn: req.body.expiresOn }),
    },
  );

  res.status(response.status).json(await response.json());
});

// Delete a specific key
app.delete("/api/keys/:keyId", async (req, res) => {
  const orgId = getAuthenticatedOrg(req);
  if (!orgId) return res.status(401).json({ error: "Unauthorized" });

  const response = await fetch(
    `${ZUPLO_BASE}/${ZUPLO_ACCOUNT}/key-buckets/${ZUPLO_BUCKET}/consumers/${orgId}/keys/${req.params.keyId}?tag.orgId=${orgId}`,
    {
      method: "DELETE",
      headers: { Authorization: `Bearer ${ZUPLO_API_KEY}` },
    },
  );

  res.sendStatus(response.status);
});

Integration options

Depending on how much control you need, there are several ways to integrate:

Approach	Effort	Control	Best for
Zuplo Developer Portal	None	Low	Teams that don't need a custom UI
Custom UI with the Developer API (this guide)	Medium	Full	Any stack, full control over UX

Next steps

• API Key API reference — additional API operations including querying consumers by tags and bulk key creation.
• Zuplo Developer API documentation — full endpoint reference for all consumer, key, bucket, and manager operations.
• API Key Authentication policy — configure how keys are validated on your routes.