What is bring your own key?
Bring your own key, or BYOK, is the option for an organization to supply its own API key for the model provider its Digital FTEs use. With a key configured, the FTEs' model calls run against the organization's own provider account, under the organization's own agreement with that provider, and are billed there.
On ftes.ai, work runs through the Claude Agent SDK, and the organization can bring its own provider key. Without one, model usage runs on the platform's account and is covered by the plan's token wallet.
What changes with BYOK?
Two things change. Billing for model usage moves to the organization's provider account. And the data handling terms that apply to the model calls become the organization's own agreement with the provider, which matters for organizations that have negotiated specific terms, data residency, or zero-retention arrangements directly.
The platform's own conduct is unchanged: it does not train models on your data with or without BYOK, and the workspace, approval, and audit mechanisms are the same.
What does not change?
The workflow controls do not change. Every Digital FTE still starts at Level 0 on the autonomy ladder, every proposal still passes the approval gate, every published claim still passes the fact gate, and every action is still in the audit trail. BYOK changes the plumbing beneath the model call, not the governance above it.
Model tier choice also works the same way: the tier is set per FTE in Setup, and with BYOK the chosen tier's usage is billed to your account rather than the platform's.
- Changes: who is billed for model usage; whose provider terms apply
- Unchanged: approval gate, fact gate, autonomy ladder, audit trail
- Unchanged: platform does not train on your data
- Unchanged: model tier set per FTE in Setup
How is the key protected?
The key is treated like every other credential on the platform: encrypted before storage with a key held separately from the data, never returned in an API response, never written to a log, and not visible in the workspace after entry. It can be replaced or removed from Setup at any time, and the change is logged.
This is the same protection applied to integration credentials, and it is the answer to the security reviewer's question about where the key lives.
When is BYOK worth doing?
BYOK is worth doing when the organization already has a provider agreement with terms it prefers, such as negotiated pricing, data residency, or specific retention commitments, or when procurement requires that model usage sit on a contract the organization holds directly. It is also useful for organizations that want model spend consolidated with their other provider usage.
It is not necessary for governance. An organization without its own provider relationship gets the same controls on the platform's account, and the plan's wallet bounds the spend. The choice is about billing and terms, not about safety.
How do you set up and manage a bring-your-own key?
Setting up a bring-your-own key is a permissioned action by an owner or admin in the organization's settings: paste the provider key once, and it is encrypted before storage with a separately held key, never shown again in the workspace, and never returned in a response or written to a log. From that point every Digital FTE's model usage for that provider runs on the organization's own account and is billed there, while the wallet continues to meter the platform's own work as before. The audit trail records that a key was added, by whom, and when, without the key itself.
Managing it means two habits. Rotate it on the schedule the organization's provider agreement or security policy requires, which is a replace action in the same settings, logged. And keep an eye on the provider's own usage dashboard alongside the workspace's usage per role, because with BYOK the provider bills the model usage and the workspace reports the work; the two should agree in shape if not in units. Removing the key is one action, after which usage returns to the platform's account, and nothing about the approval gate, the fact gate, the autonomy ladder, or the audit trail changes at any point.