Bring Your Own Key (BYOK)

What is BYOK?

BYOK means you supply your own AI provider's API key, the same key you would use with that provider directly. EX7 never pays for your inference and never charges you for it: your prompts go straight to the provider you choose. The trade-off: the optional AI step that refines a strategy in the strategy builder runs only once you have connected a key, or when you pass a key for a single run.

Supported providers

EX7 supports nineteen LLM providers. OpenRouter is the default because a single OpenRouter key reaches Claude, GPT, and GLM family models through one account, so it is the easiest place to start. If you would rather pay nothing, OpenCode Zen ships genuinely free coding models (the -free ids, such as deepseek-v4-flash-free), and Google Gemini, Groq, Cerebras and GitHub Models all have free tiers. Or connect a direct key for any frontier lab (Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, xAI, Mistral, DeepSeek, Moonshot/Kimi, Zhipu) or fast inference cloud (Together, Fireworks, DeepInfra, Nebius, Perplexity, OpenCode Go). You control the model.

openrouter   (default — one key reaches Claude / GPT / GLM)
opencode     (OpenCode Zen — free coding models: the *-free ids)
opencode-go  (OpenCode Go — cheap open-weight coders, same key)
anthropic    (Claude, direct)
openai       (GPT, direct)
google       (Gemini — free tier)
xai          (Grok)
mistral      (Mistral / Codestral)
deepseek     (DeepSeek chat / reasoner)
groq         (fast, free tier)
cerebras     (fastest tokens/sec, free tier)
together     (Together AI — open models)
fireworks    (Fireworks AI — open models)
deepinfra    (DeepInfra — open models)
moonshot     (Kimi)
perplexity   (Sonar — search-grounded)
github       (GitHub Models — free on a GitHub token)
nebius       (Nebius AI — open models)
zhipu        (Zhipu / GLM)

Getting a key

The fastest path is an OpenRouter account: sign up at openrouter.ai, create an API key, and optionally add a few dollars of credit. That single key is all EX7 needs to reach the model families you pick in your settings. To spend nothing, create an OpenCode Zen key at opencode.ai and pick one of its free models (the -free ids, such as deepseek-v4-flash-free), or use a free-tier key from Google AI Studio, Groq, Cerebras or GitHub Models. If you already have a direct key for any supported lab or inference cloud, you can use that provider instead. Pick it from the provider dropdown before saving.

Connecting it in EX7

Open Settings → Connect your AI, choose your provider, paste the key, and save. The key is validated once on save (a single cheap test call to the provider) and is then stored encrypted at rest (AES-256-GCM). EX7 never stores your key in plaintext, never logs it, and never sends it to anything other than your chosen provider's chat-completions endpoint.

If you do not have a key

You can still use EX7. The deterministic strategy engines (the pattern matcher and the synthesizer) generate strategies with no AI call at all, so they cost nothing and need no key. The optional AI step that refines a strategy asks you to connect a key instead of silently spending EX7's money. Connect one whenever you want that step.

Privacy posture

When BYOK is active, the prompts and strategy configuration content needed to generate a strategy are sent directly to the provider you selected, under that provider's terms of service. EX7 does not retain the prompt or the response content longer than is necessary to deliver the result to you. The public Privacy Policy and Terms carry the full legal detail (see the BYOK clause in Privacy Section 6 and Terms Section 8.4).