Managing API keys

How Clother stores and loads API keys, and which environment variable each provider uses.

Clother stores all API keys in a single plaintext file with restricted permissions:

~/.local/share/clother/secrets.env

The file is created with chmod 600 (owner read/write only) and is never a symlink. Clother refuses to load it if it is.

File format

The secrets file uses simple KEY=value pairs, one per line. Blank lines and lines starting with # are ignored.

# ~/.local/share/clother/secrets.env
ZAI_API_KEY=sk-abc123...
MINIMAX_API_KEY=sk-xyz789...
OPENROUTER_API_KEY=sk-or-...

Values may be unquoted, single-quoted, or double-quoted. Single-quoted values are taken literally. Values with spaces, tabs, backslashes, or single quotes are written by Clother using $'...' quoting.

Edit this file through clother config whenever possible. Clother normalizes and re-saves the file after each configuration change, which ensures correct quoting and sorted key order.

API key by provider

Provider	Environment variable	Notes
Z.AI (international)	ZAI_API_KEY	z.ai
Z.AI (China)	ZAI_CN_API_KEY	open.bigmodel.cn endpoint
MiniMax (international)	MINIMAX_API_KEY	minimax.io
MiniMax (China)	MINIMAX_CN_API_KEY	api.minimaxi.com endpoint
Kimi	KIMI_API_KEY	kimi.com
Moonshot AI	MOONSHOT_API_KEY	moonshot.ai
DeepSeek	DEEPSEEK_API_KEY	platform.deepseek.com
Xiaomi MiMo	MIMO_API_KEY	platform.xiaomimimo.com
Alibaba (all regions)	ALIBABA_API_KEY	Shared by alibaba, alibaba-us, alibaba-cn
VolcEngine	ARK_API_KEY	ark.cn-beijing.volces.com endpoint
OpenRouter	OPENROUTER_API_KEY	openrouter.ai

Providers that do not need API keys

Local providers

Ollama, LM Studio, and llama.cpp run on your machine and do not require any credentials. Just start the local server and pass --model when launching.

Native Anthropic

clother-native uses your existing Claude Pro, Max, or Team subscription. No API key is stored or set by Clother.

Setting a key

The recommended way to add or update a key is through clother config:

clother config zai
# Prompts: API key (empty to keep current)

Clother masks the stored value in the prompt (sk-a****1234) so you can confirm one is already set without exposing it.