API Key Resource
You access the Twilio API using API Keys that represent the required credentials. These keys allow you to:
- Authenticate with Twilio’s API.
- Create and revoke Access Tokens.
See this document for more information about your request to Twilio’s REST API, or read our article on Access Tokens to learn more.
API Keys can be provisioned and revoked through the REST API or the Twilio Console. This provides a powerful and flexible primitive for managing access to the Twilio API. There are two types of API Keys: Standard and Main.
Standard API Keys give you access to all of the functionality in Twilio’s API, except for managing API Keys, Account Configuration, and Subaccounts.
Main API Keys have the same access as Standard Keys, and can also manage API Keys, Account Configuration, and Subaccounts. Main API Keys give you the same level of access as if you were using account API Credentials.
Main account API Keys are only available to access main account resources. Access to sub account resources will be denied.
Since API Keys can be independently revoked, you have complete control of the lifecycle of your API credentials.
For example, you might issue separate API Keys to different developers or to different subsystems within your application. If a key is compromised or no longer used, you can easily delete it to prevent unauthorized access!
If your use case requires API Keys to access the /Accounts or /Keys endpoint, a Main Key needs to be used. This can be created in the Console.
Key properties
| Resource Properties in REST API format | |
|---|---|
sid
|
The unique string that that we created to identify the Key resource. |
friendly_name
|
The string that you assigned to describe the resource. |
date_created
|
The date and time in GMT that the resource was created specified in RFC 2822 format. |
date_updated
|
The date and time in GMT that the resource was last updated specified in RFC 2822 format. |
Create a new API Key
If a new API Key was created successfully, Twilio will respond with a representation of the new API Key.
This representation will be the same as that returned when fetching an API Key’s instance resource, but will also include the Secret field.
POST https://api.twilio.com/2010-04-01/Accounts/{AccountSid}/Keys.jsonFor security reasons, the Secret field is only returned when the API Key is first created — never when fetching the resource. Your application should store the API Key’s SID and Secret in a secure location to authenticate to the API and generate Access Tokens in the future.
Parameters
| Parameters in REST API format | |
|---|---|
account_sid
Path
|
The SID of the Account that will be responsible for the new Key resource. |
friendly_name
Optional
|
A descriptive string that you create to describe the resource. It can be up to 64 characters long. |
Fetch a Key resource
GET https://api.twilio.com/2010-04-01/Accounts/{AccountSid}/Keys/{Sid}.jsonReturns a representation of the API Key.
| Parameters in REST API format | |
|---|---|
account_sid
Path
|
The SID of the Account that created the Key resource to fetch. |
sid
Path
|
The Twilio-provided string that uniquely identifies the Key resource to fetch. |
Read a Key resource
GET https://api.twilio.com/2010-04-01/Accounts/{AccountSid}/Keys.jsonReturns a list of API Keys in this account, sorted by DateUpdated.
The list includes all API Keys. It also includes paging information.
| Parameters in REST API format | |
|---|---|
account_sid
Path
|
The SID of the Account that created the Key resources to read. |
Update a Key resource
POST https://api.twilio.com/2010-04-01/Accounts/{AccountSid}/Keys/{Sid}.jsonAttempts to update the fields of an API Key instance.
If successful, it returns the updated resource representation. The response will be identical to that of the HTTP GET (fetch).
We recommend following the standard URI specification and avoid the following reserved characters ! * ' ( ) ; : @ & = + $ , / ? % # [ ] for values such as identity and friendly name.
| Parameters in REST API format | |
|---|---|
account_sid
Path
|
The SID of the Account that created the Key resources to update. |
sid
Path
|
The Twilio-provided string that uniquely identifies the Key resource to update. |
friendly_name
Optional
|
A descriptive string that you create to describe the resource. It can be up to 64 characters long. |
Delete a Key resource
DELETE https://api.twilio.com/2010-04-01/Accounts/{AccountSid}/Keys/{Sid}.jsonDeletes an API Key. This revokes its authorization to authenticate to the REST API and invalidates all Access Tokens generated using its secret.
If the delete is successful, Twilio will return an HTTP 204 response with no body.
You may only delete Standard or Main API Keys by authenticating the request with AccountSid and AuthToken, or with AccountSID, Main API Key, and the API key’s Secret.
| Parameters in REST API format | |
|---|---|
account_sid
Path
|
The SID of the Account that created the Key resources to delete. |
sid
Path
|
The Twilio-provided string that uniquely identifies the Key resource to delete. |
Login with an API Key
Using a helper library for the language of your choice, you can use your API Keys to authenticate and use the Twilio REST API.
The API Key type has to be created as key type Main for the command to access your accounts. Keys of type Standard can only be used on commands where you also provide the Account SID as part of the API. For example:
curl -X GET https://api.twilio.com/2010-04-01/Accounts/\
'<YOUR_ACCOUNT_SID>'/Applications.json \
-u '<YOUR_API_KEY>:<YOUR_API_KEY_SECRET>'If you’ve set these credentials as exported shell environment variables using the standard names, this becomes:
curl -X GET https://api.twilio.com/2010-04-01/Accounts/\
${TWILIO_ACCOUNT_SID}/Applications.json \
-u ${TWILIO_API_KEY}:${TWILIO_API_KEY_SECRET}Need some help?
We all do sometimes; code is hard. Get help now from our support team, or lean on the wisdom of the crowd by visiting Twilio's Stack Overflow Collective or browsing the Twilio tag on Stack Overflow.
