ShellYard

Get an OpenAI API key

Step-by-step: create an OpenAI Platform account, add a payment method, mint an API key, and drop it into ShellYard Settings → Magellan → OpenAI.

ShellYard’s Magellan AI requires your own API key when you select the OpenAI provider. Keys are minted in the OpenAI Platform dashboard — separate from ChatGPT consumer accounts, even if you already pay for ChatGPT Plus.

Steps

  1. Create an OpenAI Platform account. Go to platform.openai.com and sign up with email, Google, Microsoft, or Apple. ChatGPT Plus does not include API credits — Platform is a separate billing surface from the chat product.

  2. Add a payment method. API usage is pay-as-you-go. Navigate to Settings → Billing → Payment methods and add a card. Setting a monthly hard limit under Settings → Limits is recommended for first-time API users — it caps spend so a runaway script can’t surprise you.

  3. Mint an API key. Open Dashboard → API keys → + Create new secret key. If your account has Projects enabled, scope the key to a project so you can revoke it independently of other apps. Name it something you’ll recognize — e.g. shellyard-laptop. The key is shown once; copy it immediately.

  4. Paste it into ShellYard. Open Settings → Magellan → Provider: OpenAI → API key and paste. ShellYard fires a small test request to confirm the key works, then stores it (see BYO key for storage details by tier).

Key format

Modern keys are project-scoped and start with sk-proj-. Legacy account-wide keys starting with sk- (no -proj- segment) remain valid but aren’t issued to new accounts. Both work with ShellYard.

Picking a model

ShellYard exposes a smart model + fast model pair under the provider settings — Magellan routes per stage. Typical pairings:

TierSmart modelFast model
Best qualityGPT-5GPT-5 mini
Balanced (default)GPT-5 miniGPT-5 nano
Lowest costGPT-5 nanoGPT-5 nano

The exact model identifiers update over time. See platform.openai.com/docs/models for the current list and context-window sizes.

Pricing

OpenAI prices per-token, with separate input, cached-input, and output rates. The current rate card is at openai.com/api/pricing. The cached-input pricing is meaningful for Magellan because the five-stage flow keeps a stable context across turns — repeated prefixes are billed at the cached-input rate, which is typically 50% of the standard input rate.

A monthly hard limit in Settings → Limits is the safest way to keep spend bounded.

Rotating

If a key leaks, return to Dashboard → API keys, revoke the compromised key, mint a new one, and overwrite the value in ShellYard. The revoked key stops working within seconds — no need to coordinate.

Troubleshooting

  • “401 Unauthorized” on first use — usually means the key was copied with a trailing space, OR the billing setup hasn’t fully propagated. Try minting a fresh key after confirming a payment method is attached.
  • “429 Too Many Requests” — you’ve hit your monthly spend limit. Increase the limit under Settings → Limits or wait for the limit window to reset.
  • Key works in curl but not in ShellYard — check Settings → Magellan → Provider is set to OpenAI, not OpenAI-compatible. The compatible provider takes both a key and a base URL pointing at your self-hosted endpoint.