API Keys

Learn how API keys work on Dub.

API keys on Dub allow you to access your workspace programmatically. This is useful for integrating Dub into your application or with other tools and services.

Each API key is tied to a specific workspace – meaning you can use it to access that workspace’s resources without having to worry about “leaking” access to other workspaces.

API keys on Dub follow the format:

.env

DUB_API_KEY=dub_xxxxxxxx

By default, you can use this key to perform any API request without restriction, so it must be stored securely in your app’s server-side code (such as in an environment variable or credential management system). Don’t expose this key on a website.

Create an API key

You can create an API key by following these steps:

1. Go to your workspace

   Go to Settings > API Keys in your workspace.

   
2. Create an API Key

   Click on the “Create” button and select permissions you want to grant to the API key.

   Select between “You” and “Machine” to associate the API key with your account or a machine user.

   • You: This API key is tied to your user and can make requests against the selected workspace.
   • Machine: A machine user will be added to your workspace, and an API key associated with that machine user will be created.

   

   Click on the Create API Key button to create the key. Make sure to copy your API key and store it in a safe place. You won’t be able to see it again.

   
3. Use your API Key

   Now that you have your API key, you can use it to access your workspace’s resources programmatically via SDKs or within any API request as a bearer token.

   Authorization: Bearer dub_xxxx
   

We recommend creating API keys with the least privilege necessary to perform the required tasks. This helps to reduce the risk of unauthorized access to your workspace.

API key permissions

When creating a secret key, you can select the permissions it has, which will give the key access to certain (or all) resources on Dub. Here are the different permission options:

Permission	Description
All permissions	This API key will have full access to all resources.
Read only	This API key will have read-only access to all resources.
Restricted	This API key will have restricted access to some resources: Links Analytics Workspaces Domains Tags

Depending on your use case, you might want to use one of these 3 options to limit the scope of the API key and improve security. When making API calls, if your API key has insufficient permissions, the error should tell you which permissions you need.

You can only set permissions on Secret keys. Publishable keys only have access to certain endpoints, and cannot be restricted.

Machine users

On Dub, you can create API keys that are associated with a “Machine user”. This is particularly helpful when you don’t want to associate the API key with a particular user in your workspace, to avoid security risks in involving turnover or changes in project ownership.

Machine users share the same permissions as the owner role in a workspace. Make sure to only create machine users for trusted applications.

These machine users will show up on your workspace’s People tab, but will not contribute to your workspace’s user count.

If you delete an API key associated with a machine user, the machine user will be deleted. Vice versa, if you delete a machine user, their corresponding API key will be deleted as well.