API keys

Scira needs credentials for an LLM provider (model calls) and a search provider (web search). Required keys depend on your llmProvider and search.provider in config.

Where keys are saved

Scira loads keys in this order (highest priority first):

Shell environment — variables already exported in your terminal
<project>/.scira/.env — when you run Scira from that project directory
~/.scira/.env — global defaults from any directory

# Interactive wizard (saves to ~/.scira/.env)
scira init

# Manual — global
mkdir -p ~/.scira && cp .env.example ~/.scira/.env

# Manual — project only
mkdir -p .scira && cp .env.example .scira/.env

scira doctor
scira keys

Project vs global

If keys work in development but not after bun link, they may be in the wrong file. Use ~/.scira/.env for global installs, or .scira/.env in the repo when running from that project root.

LLM providers

Set one provider via scira init or /llm in the TUI.

Key	Provider	Where to get it
`AI_GATEWAY_API_KEY`	Vercel AI Gateway (default)	vercel.com/docs/ai-gateway → dashboard → AI Gateway → API Keys
`XAI_API_KEY`	xAI (Grok)	console.x.ai → API Keys
`CLOUDFLARE_ACCOUNT_ID` + `CLOUDFLARE_API_TOKEN`	Cloudflare Workers AI	dash.cloudflare.com + API Tokens with Workers AI permission
`HF_API_KEY`	Hugging Face Inference	huggingface.co/settings/tokens

Vercel AI Gateway

Sign in at vercel.com.
Open your team dashboard → AI Gateway → API Keys.
Create a key (starts with sk-) and set AI_GATEWAY_API_KEY.

xAI (Grok)

Create an account at console.x.ai.
Open API Keys and create a key.
Set XAI_API_KEY.

XAI_API_KEY also enables the xSearch tool — when the key is present the agent can search X (formerly Twitter) for real-time posts alongside regular web search. You do not need to set xAI as your LLM provider to use xSearch; the key is all that is required.

Cloudflare Workers AI

Copy your Account ID from the Cloudflare dashboard sidebar.
Create an API token with the Edit Cloudflare Workers AI template.
Set CLOUDFLARE_ACCOUNT_ID and CLOUDFLARE_API_TOKEN.

Search providers

Set one provider via scira init or /provider in the TUI.

Key	Provider	Where to get it
`EXA_API_KEY`	Exa (default)	dashboard.exa.ai/api-keys
`FIRECRAWL_API_KEY`	Firecrawl	firecrawl.dev/app/api-keys
`PARALLEL_API_KEY`	Parallel	platform.parallel.ai

FIRECRAWL_API_KEY is also used as an automatic fallback when Exa or Parallel search fails, so it is worth setting even if Firecrawl is not your primary provider.

Saving keys in the TUI

/key EXA_API_KEY your-key-here
/keys

Keys saved with /key go to ~/.scira/.env and apply immediately for the current session.