Use your own model key

By default Bellwether pays for the model sessions that run your book: the PM's checks, the Researcher's briefs, the Critic's reviews and your Consult conversations. Once it is switched on, a book's owner can instead paste a Claude API key from their own Claude Console, and that book's desk then runs on the owner's account: their usage page, their spend limits, their bill. One key per book; the house book always stays on Bellwether's account.

What adding a key does

1. 1You open Settings › AI on the book, press Add your key, paste the key and confirm with your authenticator code (you are asked for the code first, so the key is sent exactly once). Only the book's owner can do this; an operator or a viewer of the book sees the card but not the button. A book accepts at most six new keys an hour.
2. 2The key is stored where the console itself cannot read it back. The page never shows it again: from here on you see its last four characters, when it was last checked, and one sentence about its state.
3. 3Within about a minute the desk checks the key with Claude: it asks which models the key may use and makes one tiny request so a billing problem shows up now rather than in the middle of a trading session. The card reads Checking, then Active.
4. 4The book's owner is told by email that a key was added and by whom, with the last four characters and nothing else. If you did not do it, remove the key and change your password.
5. 5The audit log records that a key was added, checked, replaced or removed, and by whom. It never records the key.

Replacing works the same way: paste the new key; the current one stays in use until the new one is accepted, so a typo never stops a working book. If you paste twice in a row (the wrong key, then the right one), the first paste is discarded and its stored copy destroyed without ever being used. Removing asks you to type REMOVE and confirm with a code; every stored copy is destroyed and, from the next run, the book is back on Bellwether's account under Bellwether's limits.

What the card tells you

No key

The book runs on Bellwether's account. Add your key to move it to yours.

Checking

A key you pasted is being checked. Nothing runs on it until it is accepted.

Active · ••••1a2b · checked 9:31 AM

The key is accepted and checked at least once a day before the first session.

Checking new key

You pasted a replacement; the current key keeps working until the new one is accepted.

Not accepted

Claude refused the key (mistyped, revoked or disabled). A previous working key stays in use; otherwise the book is back on Bellwether's account until you add a working one.

Paused

Your Claude API account reached its spend limit. The book's model sessions pause until the limit resets or you raise it in your Claude Console; press Check now afterwards.

Check now asks the desk to check the key again, at most six times an hour per book; owners and operators may press it.

What a paused or rejected key does not touch

Only the model side of the book pauses: the PM proposes nothing new and Consult says why it cannot answer. Everything the Executor does keeps working exactly as before: exits and stops on positions you hold, approvals already given, the loss halts on Risk and the kill switch. A key problem never moves money and never switches the book quietly back to Bellwether's account while your key is still on file.

Who pays, and what the numbers mean

While a book runs on your key, its model spend is yours and Bellwether's daily allowance for that book no longer applies; a hard per-session ceiling still stops a runaway session whoever pays. The amounts the console shows are estimates from the model's own usage report at list prices. The usage page in your Claude Console (console.anthropic.com) is what you are actually billed, and your account's own settings there (spend limits, rate tier, data retention, key expiry) govern every session the desk runs on your key.

Keeping a key safe

Create a key in a Claude Console workspace you use only for this book, give that workspace a monthly spend limit you are comfortable with, and rotate the key now and then with Replace key. Paste the key only into the Settings › AI box: never into Consult, a note, Guidance or an email. If you think a key leaked, disable it in your Claude Console first (the book pauses within the session), then replace it here.