Gateway and authentication

Choose a Tikway API endpoint and authenticate OpenAI, Anthropic, or Gemini requests.

The public Tikway API gateway is https://api.tikway.ai. One Tikway API key works across supported protocols. The request path selects the incoming protocol; the model ID selects the model.

Choose an endpoint

Protocol	SDK base URL	Common endpoint
OpenAI-compatible	https://api.tikway.ai/v1	POST https://api.tikway.ai/v1/chat/completions or POST https://api.tikway.ai/v1/responses
Anthropic Messages	https://api.tikway.ai	POST https://api.tikway.ai/v1/messages
Native Gemini	https://api.tikway.ai, API version v1beta	POST https://api.tikway.ai/v1beta/models/{model}:generateContent

Use HTTPS. Set Content-Type: application/json for JSON requests. For file uploads, follow the endpoint’s multipart/form-data specification. In Gemini requests, {model} is part of the path; other APIs usually take model in the JSON body. Use an available model ID from your Tikway model list.

Tikway’s native Anthropic and Gemini paths are /v1/messages and /v1beta/models/.... Do not append /anthropic or /gemini to the gateway URL.

Create and store an API key

Sign in to the Tikway console to create an API key. Store it in a server-side environment variable such as TIKWAY_API_KEY. Do not put it in browser code, mobile app bundles, repositories, or logs. Revoke and replace an exposed key.

The examples below use a shell environment variable. Set TIKWAY_API_KEY first and replace each example model with one available to your account.

Pass the key for each protocol

Request protocol	Recommended authentication header	Other headers
OpenAI-compatible, images, videos, and other /v1 APIs	Authorization: Bearer $TIKWAY_API_KEY	Content-Type: application/json for JSON requests
Anthropic Messages	x-api-key: $TIKWAY_API_KEY	anthropic-version: 2023-06-01, Content-Type: application/json
Native Gemini	x-goog-api-key: $TIKWAY_API_KEY	Content-Type: application/json

The gateway also accepts X-API-Key. For new integrations, use the protocol-native header shown above so your requests match the SDKs and API Reference. Send Gemini keys in the request header.

OpenAI-compatible example

curl https://api.tikway.ai/v1/chat/completions \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $TIKWAY_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "model": "openai/gpt-5.6-terra",
    "messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "Hello"}]
  }'

For an OpenAI SDK, set base_url to https://api.tikway.ai/v1 and api_key to your Tikway key. The SDK adds the Bearer header.

Anthropic Messages example

curl https://api.tikway.ai/v1/messages \
  -H "x-api-key: $TIKWAY_API_KEY" \
  -H "anthropic-version: 2023-06-01" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "model": "claude-sonnet-4-6",
    "max_tokens": 1024,
    "messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "Hello"}]
  }'

Native Gemini example

curl 'https://api.tikway.ai/v1beta/models/gemini-2.5-flash:generateContent' \
  -H "x-goog-api-key: $TIKWAY_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "contents": [{"role": "user", "parts": [{"text": "Hello"}]}]
  }'

Troubleshoot authentication

The gateway returns 401 when it cannot identify or validate the key. It may return 403 when a valid key lacks access to a resource. Check the URL, the complete key, the header for your protocol, and access to the target model.

The x-request-id response header identifies a request for support and debugging. See Status codes and responses for error bodies, rate limit headers, and retries.