Can I see a key again after creating it?

No. Only a hash and a display prefix are stored, so the plaintext is shown once at creation. If it is lost, revoke it and mint a new one.

Why can a relay key not read my balance?

Account endpoints require a browser session, not a relay key. That separation means a leaked key cannot be used to read logs or mint new keys.

401 · invalid_key / missing_key / key_revoked

invalid_key, missing_key and key_revoked: authentication failures

A 401 means the request had no usable Backfire key. Three codes distinguish the cases: missing_key means no Authorization header arrived, invalid_key means the value is not a live Backfire key, and key_revoked means the key existed and was revoked.

Common causes

The Authorization header used a format other than "Bearer backfire_…_api".
The key was copied with a trailing newline or lost a character when pasted.
The key was revoked in the dashboard, or you are using a key from a different account.
The request hit the wrong endpoint — only the forward endpoint accepts relay keys.

How to fix it

01Send the header exactly as Authorization: Bearer <key>, with no quotes around the value.
02Mint a fresh key if the old one was revoked; revocation is permanent and immediate.
03Store the key in an environment variable and confirm the running process actually sees it.

What it looks like

invalid_key

# correct
curl -sS https://backfireapi.base44.app/functions/forward \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $BACKFIRE_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"url":"https://api.github.com/zen","method":"GET"}'

# incorrect: key in a query string, or missing the Bearer prefix

Every error code

blocked_target insufficient_trips invalid_key rate_limited upstream_timeout payload_too_large response_too_large dns_failure account_frozen

Questions about this

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