Authentication

All API endpoints are authenticated using API Subscription Keys provided by Sarvam AI when you sign up. Include these keys in the header of each API request as follows:

api-subscription-key: YOUR_SARVAM_API_KEY

Bearer token (alternative)

The API also accepts the same key as a standard Authorization: Bearer header on all endpoints:

Authorization: Bearer YOUR_SARVAM_API_KEY

This is useful with OpenAI-compatible tooling pointed at the Chat Completions endpoint (/v1/chat/completions), which conventionally sends Bearer auth. All examples in these docs and the official SDKs use the api-subscription-key header — prefer it unless your tooling requires Bearer.

Obtaining Your API Subscription Key

1. Sign Up: Create an account on the Sarvam Dashboard
2. Generate Key: After signing up, you must manually generate your API key from the dashboard. Navigate to the API Keys section and create a new key for your account.
3. Organisation Key Management: Creating Organisational level keys is not currently supported and will be available soon.

Best Practices for API Key Management

1. Keep Your Key Secret: Never expose your API key in public repositories or client-side code.
2. Use Environment Variables: Store your API key in environment variables rather than hardcoding it in your application.
3. Monitor Usage: Regularly check your API usage on the Sarvam dashboard. You should be able to see the credits utilised & remaining

Using the API Subscription Key

To authenticate your requests, include the API-Subscription-Key in the headers of your HTTP requests. Here’s an example using SarvamAI SDK:

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from sarvamai import SarvamAI
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client = SarvamAI(
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    api_subscription_key="YOUR_SARVAM_API_KEY",
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)
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response = client.text.translate(
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    input="Hi, My Name is Vinayak.",
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    source_language_code="auto",
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    target_language_code="hi-IN",
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    speaker_gender="Male"
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)
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print(response)

Status Codes for Authentication Failures

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HTTP/1.1 403 Forbidden
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Content-Type: application/json
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{
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  "error": {
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    "code": "invalid_api_key_error",
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    "message": "Invalid API key"
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  }
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}