Setting up your Anthropic API key

The AI advisor on your Tax Dashboard runs against your own Anthropic account, so your questions stay billed to you (not to the dashboard owner). This guide walks you through creating a key and pasting it in — takes about 5 minutes, start to finish.

1Why you need your own API key

The advisor answers questions and produces recommendations by calling Anthropic's Claude API. Every call costs a small amount (typically less than a penny — more on that below). Instead of routing all users through a single shared bill, the dashboard asks each authorised user to plug in their own key.

That means:

• You pay only for what you use. No shared caps, no fair-use rules.
• Your usage is private to your Anthropic account. The dashboard owner can see that you used it (in the Netlify function logs) but not what you asked.
• You stay in control. You can set spending caps, rotate the key, or delete it at any time — from either the dashboard or the Anthropic Console.

2Create an Anthropic API key

You'll need an Anthropic account with a billing method attached. This is a separate account from Claude.ai (the chat app) — even if you already use Claude.ai, you'll likely need to sign in again to the developer console.

1. Open the Anthropic Console Go to console.anthropic.com. Sign in with your email (or Google). If it's your first time, you'll be prompted to create a workspace — pick whatever name you like, e.g. "Personal".
2. Add a billing method In the left sidebar, click Billing → Plans & Billing. Add a credit/debit card. You don't need a paid plan — the API bills as you use it. Add $5–$10 of prepaid credits to start.
3. Set a spending limit While you're there, go to Billing → Limits (or Usage limits) and set a monthly cap — e.g. $10/month. This is your safety net if something ever runs away.
4. Create the API key In the left sidebar click API Keys → Create Key. Give it a recognisable name like btc-dashboard so you can see its usage separately in analytics later.
5. Copy the key immediately The key starts with sk-ant-…. Anthropic only shows it once — if you close the dialog without copying, you'll have to create a new one. Paste it somewhere safe temporarily (a password manager is ideal).

3Add the key to your dashboard

Now you'll tell the dashboard to use your new key. This takes about 30 seconds.

1. Sign in to the dashboard Go to the Tax Dashboard. If you're not already signed in, you'll be prompted.
2. Open AI Settings Scroll down to the Recommendations panel (labelled with an orange "AI" chip). In the panel's title row, click the small gear icon ⚙️ on the right-hand side.
3. Paste your key A modal opens titled AI Advisor Settings. In the New API key field, paste the sk-ant-… value you copied earlier.
4. Click "Save key" The page encrypts the key and sends it to the server. After a second or two, the status pill should flip to Configured with a preview like sk-ant-…a1b2.

4Verify it works

Quick sanity check so you know everything's plumbed up correctly:

1. Close the AI Settings modal.
2. In the Recommendations panel, click ✨ Analyse my portfolio.
3. Wait a few seconds — you should see 3–5 personalised recommendations.
4. Click the floating chat bubble in the bottom-right corner and ask any question, e.g. "Am I over-concentrated in Bitcoin?". You should get a grounded answer referencing your actual numbers.

If you go to the Anthropic Console → Usage, you'll see a token count appear within a minute or two — confirming the call was billed to your account.

5How much it will cost

Realistic usage costs on the default Claude Sonnet 4.6 model:

The dashboard also enforces a soft cap of 60 advisor calls per user per 24 hours, so you can't accidentally burn $20 in a minute. Combined with the monthly spending limit you set in the Anthropic Console, your worst case is capped.

You can also switch to the cheaper Haiku 4.5 model for ~5× lower costs — ask the dashboard owner to update the ADVISOR_MODEL env var.

6Managing & rotating your key

The AI Settings modal shows the current state of your key. Here's what each pill means:

• Configured — your self-saved key is being used. You can replace it or remove it.
• Admin-managed — the dashboard owner pre-set a key for you. Contact them to change it.
• Owner fallback — the dashboard owner's own key is being used for your calls. Only applies if you are the owner.
• Not configured — no key is set. The advisor will return an error until you paste one.

Replacing your key (rotation)

Best practice is to rotate keys every few months, or immediately if you think one's been exposed.

1. In the Anthropic Console, create a fresh API key (same steps as section 2).
2. Open AI Settings on the dashboard.
3. Paste the new key in and click Replace key.
4. Go back to the Anthropic Console and revoke the old key. This is the step most people forget — without it, the old key still works.

Removing your key

Click Remove key in the modal. This deletes the encrypted row from the database. The advisor will stop working for you until you save a new key.

7Security notes — where your key lives

The technical details, for peace of mind:

• When you click Save key, the raw key travels over HTTPS to a serverless function (/.netlify/functions/user-key).
• The function encrypts it with AES-256-GCM using a server-side secret the browser never sees.
• The encrypted ciphertext is stored in Supabase, indexed by your user ID.
• The Supabase row is behind row-level security with zero policies, so it's unreadable by any client — even with a valid session. Only the Netlify function can touch it.
• The key preview in the UI (sk-ant-…a1b2) only shows the last 4 characters. The full key is never sent back to the browser once saved.

8Troubleshooting