> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.realtycrawl.dev/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Authentication and credits

Keep API credentials on your server. The public metadata endpoints do not require authentication.

## Authenticate requests

Send one Authorization: Bearer header with a live rc\_live\_ key. X-API-Key is supported as an alternative; do not send both. Revoked, expired, scoped-out, deleted-account and banned-account keys are rejected.

```text theme={null}
Authorization: Bearer $REALTYCRAWL_API_KEY
```

## Control credits

The deployed OpenAPI currently advertises 1 credit for a single-platform source search and 1 credit for a stored-observation read. Set X-Max-Credits to the maximum you authorize; it is a ceiling, not the charge. Check the current operation contract before execution. Public metadata is free. Inspect creditsCharged and warnings in the returned envelope.

## Make retries idempotent

Use a stable Idempotency-Key for a logical POST request. The key is scoped to your account, operation and canonical input. A completed replay returns the stored response and X-Credits-Used: 0. Reusing it for a different input returns HTTP 409. Keep the key unchanged after a network interruption; do not start a second scrape with a fresh key.

## Key lifecycle

Create and revoke keys in the dashboard. Copy a newly created key into a protected environment value, then remove it from chat transcripts or temporary notes. To rotate, create a replacement, update your clients, verify them, and revoke the old key. Test keys can exercise authentication but cannot run source operations.

## Rate limits

Authenticated API requests are limited to 60 per account per minute; metadata has a separate limit of 120 per client per minute, with a 240-request ingress limit. Honor Retry-After on 429 responses. Request limiting fails closed when Redis is unavailable.


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