Managing Keys - EDSL Documentation

In addition to providing access to available models, your Expected Parrot key also allows you to post and share content for free. This page shows how to store and select keys to use when running surveys on your own computer (local inference) or at the Expected Parrot server (remote inference). For instructions on using your Expected Parrot key only for accessing the platform, please see this section of the documentation. Special note for Colab users: If you are using EDSL in a Colab notebook, please see special instructions on storing API keys as “secrets” (Colab Setup).

Caution: Treat your API keys as sensitive information, like passwords. Never share your keys publicly or upload files containing them to public repositories.

Methods

There are three methods for storing and managing keys (details on each below):

Manage keys from your Expected Parrot account (recommended)

Store keys in a local file on your computer

Set keys in your code (not recommended)

1. Manage keys from your account

This method provides a secure way to store your keys and the most flexibility in choosing how to use them. It requires an Expected Parrot account (log in/sign up here) and works with remote-inference. If you are only running surveys locally, see method 2. below for instructions on storing keys on your computer. To use this method, go to your Settings page and enable the Run surveys remotely toggle under Remote Execution:

Settings page showing Remote Execution and Remote Error Logging toggles

Then go to your Keys page and choose whether to add any of your own keys. Use the Grant access icon to share a key with other users without sharing the key directly. Use the Edit icon to modify settings for any of your keys, or the Delete icon to remove them. You can review the current prioritization of your keys at the Key priority tab at any time. When you run surveys remotely, your Expected Parrot key is used by default with any models that you have not provided keys for.

Keys page showing LLM Keys and key management options

2. Store keys in a local file

This method allows you to store keys in a private file on your computer and make them available for any surveys that you run, locally or remotely. It also allows you to post local content to Expected Parrot. To use this method:

Navigate to your EDSL working directory: $ cd /path/to/edsl (replace with your actual path)

Create a file named .env

Add your keys to the file in the following format (omit any keys that you do not have or do not want to use):

EXPECTED_PARROT_API_KEY = 'your_key_here' # This key is required for remote inference and interacting with Expected Parrot

ANTHROPIC_API_KEY = 'your_key_here'
DEEP_INFRA_API_KEY = 'your_key_here'
DEEPSEEK_API_KEY = 'your_key_here'
GOOGLE_API_KEY = 'your_key_here'
GROQ_API_KEY = 'your_key_here'
MISTRAL_API_KEY = 'your_key_here'
OPENAI_API_KEY = 'your_key_here'
PERPLEXITY_API_KEY = 'your_key_here'
TOGETHER_API_KEY = 'your_key_here'
XAI_API_KEY = 'your_key_here'

AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID = 'your_key_here'
AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY = 'your_key_here'

AZURE_ENDPOINT_URL_AND_KEY = https://model_1_link:api_key_1,https://model_2_link:api_key_2

Your Expected Parrot key can also be found at the Keys page of your account, where you can reset it at any time:

Keys page showing Expected Parrot API Key and local .env configuration

This key allows you to access all available models at once and use remote-inference to run surveys at the Expected Parrot server. It also allows you to post content to the platform, and to interact with other content that is public or shared with you. If you are using Azure or Bedrock, see a notebook of examples for setting up your keys here.

3. Set keys in your code

Warning: This method is not recommended for security reasons. If you include your keys in your code, they can be seen by anyone who has access to it. This is especially risky if you are sharing your code with others or if you are using a version control system like Git.

To use this method, store any keys that you want to use as strings in your code in the following format:

import os

os.environ['EXPECTED_PARROT_API_KEY'] = 'your_key_here'

os.environ['ANTHROPIC_API_KEY'] = 'your_key_here'
os.environ['DEEP_INFRA_API_KEY'] = 'your_key_here'
os.environ['DEEPSEEK_API_KEY'] = 'your_key_here'
os.environ['GOOGLE_API_KEY'] = 'your_key_here'
os.environ['GROQ_API_KEY'] = 'your_key_here'
os.environ['MISTRAL_API_KEY'] = 'your_key_here'
os.environ['OPENAI_API_KEY'] = 'your_key_here'
os.environ['REPLICATE_API_KEY'] = 'your_key_here'
os.environ['TOGETHER_API_KEY'] = 'your_key_here'
os.environ['XAI_API_KEY'] = 'your_key_here'

os.environ['AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID'] = 'your_key_here'
os.environ['AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY'] = 'your_key_here'

os.environ['AZURE_ENDPOINT_URL_AND_KEY'] = https://model_1_link:api_key_1,https://model_2_link:api_key_2

Note that your keys will not persist across sessions and you will need to provide your keys each time you start a new session.

Credits

When you use your Expected Parrot key to access models your account is charged for the costs of API calls to models. (When you use your own keys, service providers will bill you directly.) Please see the model pricing page for information on available models and prices and the credits section for information on purchasing credits and calculating costs.

Troubleshooting

In order to use local inference, you must also have credits available on your account with a service provider in order to run surveys with some models. If you are using remote inference, simply ensure that you have credits on your Expected Parrot account to access all available models. When you run a survey, EDSL checks whether you are using remote or local inference and then checks for the requisite API keys for the models that you have specified to use with the survey. If you do not specify a model to use for a survey, EDSL will attempt to run it with the default model. You can check the current default model by running the following command:

from edsl import Model
Model()

Output:

key	value
model	gpt-4o
parameters:temperature	0.5
parameters:max_tokens	1000
parameters:top_p	1
parameters:frequency_penalty	0
parameters:presence_penalty	0
parameters:logprobs	False
parameters:top_logprobs	3

To check all available models:

from edsl import Model
Model.available()

To check all available models for a specific provider:

from edsl import Model
Model.available(service="openai")

Learn more about available models in the Language Models section of the documentation. If you attempt to run a survey without storing any API keys, you will get a message with a link to log into your Expected Parrot account and automatically activate remote inference and store your Expected Parrot API key for you. If you provide an invalid API key you will receive an error message AuthenticationError: Incorrect API key provided…. You may also receive an error message if you do not have credits on your account with a service provider. Learn more about handling errors in the Exceptions & Debugging section of the documentation. Please also feel free to reach out to us to help you troubleshoot:

Discord channel: https://discord.com/invite/mxAYkjfy9m
Email: [email protected]

​Methods

​1. Manage keys from your account

​2. Store keys in a local file

​3. Set keys in your code

​Credits

​Troubleshooting

Methods

1. Manage keys from your account

2. Store keys in a local file

3. Set keys in your code

Credits

Troubleshooting