Skills

Skill 6 of 13

Setup API Key

Fix or hand-configure an existing ElevenLabs API key.

2 minutes · 470 words · 3 sections

Install

$ npx skills add elevenlabs/skills --skill setup-api-key

$ npx skills add elevenlabs/skills

The first command installs just this skill, by the name in its SKILL.md; the second installs the whole repository.

ElevenLabs API Key Setup

For a key the user already has, or one that stopped working. For adding ElevenLabs to a project from scratch, use the onboarding skill.

A key the user already has (for example from an administrator): don’t sign in for a new one. Tell them to paste it after ELEVENLABS_API_KEY= in the env file of the app that uses it (.env.local, or .env in a Python project), never into this chat, and to tell you when it’s done. Then check it (if check finds no key, or ElevenLabs rejects it, and offers to sign in, ask the user to check the paste instead of signing in):

npx -y @elevenlabs/cli@latest onboard check

A key that stopped working: run the same command from the app’s folder. It finds the key the app would use (the shell, the env file, or a .env up the tree), checks it with ElevenLabs without printing it, and prints JSON: next is the step (spelled out in instruction; where the list below differs, follow the list), run the exact command, and say what to tell the user (tell them as written). Follow it until the key works; for a rejected key it signs the user in for a new one. What each next means:

run: run run. wait: show say, then run run again right away.
ask_user, or a fix that needs the user’s shell or secrets: ask them what say says, wait for their answer, then run run, unless they said no.
write_code: if the app already reads ELEVENLABS_API_KEY (through the SDK or its own requests), don’t change its code: after connect, run run; after check, tell the user the key works (not say) and stop. Otherwise make sure the code uses the SDK, then run run; if nothing shows what the app should do with ElevenLabs, ask the user first, and don’t pick a product for them.
offer_test: ask the question in say; run run only if they say yes.
done: tell the user say.

Rules

Never open, print or cat the env file, and never echo ELEVENLABS_API_KEY; onboard check verifies the key for you.
Never ask for an API key in chat, and never accept one pasted there. If one appears, tell the user to rotate it on the API keys page.
Never put the key in code; the SDK reads ELEVENLABS_API_KEY.
Don’t run the app (or its start script) or make speech to try it until the user says yes. API calls that what they asked for needs, like creating an agent, are fine. Once the code is written, run onboard check before you finish: it verifies the key and the code.
For browser or client-side apps, keep the key on the server and issue short-lived tokens where the product supports them.

No npx

If npx isn’t available (Node.js isn’t installed), install the CLI (or update it if it’s already installed: brew upgrade elevenlabs, or run the installer again), then run elevenlabs onboard check instead:

macOS or Linux: brew install elevenlabs/tap/elevenlabs, or curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -LsSf https://github.com/elevenlabs/cli/releases/latest/download/elevenlabs-cli-installer.sh | sh
Windows: powershell -ExecutionPolicy ByPass -c "irm https://github.com/elevenlabs/cli/releases/latest/download/elevenlabs-cli-installer.ps1 | iex"

If elevenlabs isn’t found after the installer ran, use ~/.cargo/bin/elevenlabs in its place, here and in every run the CLI gives.

About this skill

Trigger

Fix or hand-configure an existing ElevenLabs API key. Use when a key stopped working (401 or invalid_api_key), when an administrator issued the key, when the user's role cannot create keys, or when the user already has a key and needs it in the right place. Checks whether ELEVENLABS_API_KEY is configured and valid, without reading it into the conversation. Not for first-time setup or adding ElevenLabs to a project (use onboarding).

The verbatim description from this skill’s front matter — the string an agent matches on to decide whether to load it.

Compatibility: Requires internet access to elevenlabs.io and api.elevenlabs.io, and Node.js for npx (or the ElevenLabs CLI installed another way).
Licence: MIT
Source: setup-api-key/SKILL.md

Colophon for this issue

Colophon

How this issue was made

Source

github.com/elevenlabs/skills, branch main, last pushed 4 November 2026.

Licence

MIT — the text of every skill is reproduced unmodified, frontmatter included, under the upstream licence.

Discovery

13 skills found by walking the repository tree for SKILL.md, not by matching a directory convention. 2 distinct layouts observed: .agents/skills/*/SKILL.md, */SKILL.md.

Authorship

1 of 13 skills are installed into the repository rather than published from it. They are shelved in the closing “Credited skills” part and remain the work of their own authors. A skill counts as credited when its only copy lives under one agent’s dot directory; visible directories, per-agent mirror sets, and skills installable from this repository on skills.sh all count as published.

Issue colours

Resolved from the awesome-design-md registry — hue 134°, chroma 0.190. Two accent tones are generated per issue and each is proven against its own ground before it ships: a single accent that passes AA on both light and dark paper is arithmetically impossible.

Heading repairs

1 repair applied to this skill so the document has one h1 and no skipped levels:

Shifted “3 headings” from h1 to h2 so the skill title is the only h1.

Spec compliance

Every skill satisfies the Agent Skills specification’s frontmatter rules.

Images

Images inside a skill come from the upstream repository. Where the author gave no alternative text we mark the image decorative rather than inventing a description — a plausible caption we made up is worse than none for the reader who depends on it.

Signal

Install counts come from skills.sh. They measure downloads, not quality, and an unranked repository is not an unread one.

Agent surfaces

The whole issue is available as one markdown document at /elevenlabs/skills.md, and each skill at its own .md URL.

Publication

Set by Skills Docs from the source repository. Body text is Literata at the reader’s chosen size and measure; code is Geist Mono. Nothing on this page was written by us except this paragraph.

ElevenLabs API Key Setup

For a key the user already has, or one that stopped working. For adding ElevenLabs to a project from scratch, use the onboarding skill.

npx -y @elevenlabs/cli@latest onboard check

run: run run. wait: show say, then run run again right away.

ask_user, or a fix that needs the user’s shell or secrets: ask them what say says, wait for their answer, then run run, unless they said no.

write_code: if the app already reads ELEVENLABS_API_KEY (through the SDK or its own requests), don’t change its code: after connect, run run; after check, tell the user the key works (not say) and stop. Otherwise make sure the code uses the SDK, then run run; if nothing shows what the app should do with ElevenLabs, ask the user first, and don’t pick a product for them.

offer_test: ask the question in say; run run only if they say yes.

done: tell the user say.

Never open, print or cat the env file, and never echo ELEVENLABS_API_KEY; onboard check verifies the key for you.

Never ask for an API key in chat, and never accept one pasted there. If one appears, tell the user to rotate it on the API keys page.

Never put the key in code; the SDK reads ELEVENLABS_API_KEY.

Don’t run the app (or its start script) or make speech to try it until the user says yes. API calls that what they asked for needs, like creating an agent, are fine. Once the code is written, run onboard check before you finish: it verifies the key and the code.

For browser or client-side apps, keep the key on the server and issue short-lived tokens where the product supports them.

macOS or Linux: brew install elevenlabs/tap/elevenlabs, or

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -LsSf https://github.com/elevenlabs/cli/releases/latest/download/elevenlabs-cli-installer.sh | sh

Windows:

powershell -ExecutionPolicy ByPass -c "irm https://github.com/elevenlabs/cli/releases/latest/download/elevenlabs-cli-installer.ps1 | iex"

If elevenlabs isn’t found after the installer ran, use ~/.cargo/bin/elevenlabs in its place, here and in every run the CLI gives.