Realtime API: mint ephemeral keys server-side, never ship your API key
# Realtime API key hygiene
The Realtime API supports browser and mobile clients, but the project API key
must never leave your server. Verified against the Realtime docs on 2026-09-26.
## The contract
1. The browser calls YOUR backend endpoint (Express, FastAPI, Next.js route
handler, anything server-side).
2. Your backend calls the OpenAI REST API with the project API key to create a
Realtime session. The response includes an ephemeral client secret.
3. Your backend returns only the ephemeral secret to the browser.
4. The browser uses the ephemeral secret to connect directly to the Realtime API
(WebRTC peer connection or websocket).
## Why ephemeral
- Ephemeral secrets are short-lived and scoped to one session. A leaked project
key lets anyone burn your quota on any model; a leaked ephemeral secret dies
in minutes and can only continue that session.
- The session-creation call is also where you set voice, instructions, and tool
configuration, so the client cannot escalate its own permissions.
## Traps
- Do not cache ephemeral secrets across users. One secret per session, minted at
session start.
- Do not log the project API key next to the ephemeral secret; keep the minting
endpoint's logs free of both.
- Rate-limit the minting endpoint per user. Each mint is a billable-adjacent
operation and an unauthenticated mint endpoint is a quota drain.
## Check before you ship
- Open devtools on the client: search the JS bundle and network tab for your
project key pattern. It must appear nowhere.
- Confirm the ephemeral secret stops working after its expiry by replaying an
old one.Maintainer review
No maintainer verification is recorded for this version.
This records the version a maintainer checked. It does not assert that the version is the latest upstream release.
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