Customer Portal

Give your end users a white-labeled self-service portal for API key management, usage analytics, and docs, with a Stripe-style session auth flow.

The Customer Portal is a white-labeled web app you can offer to your end users. They get key management, usage analytics, and API documentation — without you building any UI.

Authentication uses a Stripe-style session flow: your backend creates a session, redirects the user, and the portal handles the rest.

The portal is in development. Key management, analytics, and docs pages are placeholder UI for now.

How it works

Your Backend                    Unkey API                     Portal
    │                              │                            │
    ├─ POST /v2/portal.createSession ─►│                        │
    │◄── sessionId + portal URL ───┤                            │
    │                              │                            │
    ├─ Redirect user to portal URL ─────────────────────────────►│
    │                              │◄─ POST /v2/portal.exchangeSession ─┤
    │                              │──── browser session token ──►│
    │                              │                            │
    │                              │◄── Direct API calls ───────┤

1. Your backend authenticates the user in your own system
2. Your backend calls POST /v2/portal.createSession with a root key
3. You redirect the user to the returned portal URL
4. The portal exchanges the session ID for a 24-hour browser session
5. The browser calls Unkey API directly with the session token

1. Configure a portal

Enable the Customer Portal for your workspace in the Unkey dashboard.

Dashboard configuration UI is coming soon. During early access, reach out to the Unkey team to get your portal configured.

When configuring your portal, you’ll choose a slug — a short, human-readable identifier like my-portal or billing-dashboard. Use this slug when creating sessions.

Slugs must be 3–64 characters, lowercase alphanumeric and hyphens only, and cannot start or end with a hyphen.

Optionally, you can customize branding with your logo and brand colors.

2. Create a session

When your user wants to access the portal, create a session from your backend:

cURL

curl -X POST https://api.unkey.com/v2/portal.createSession \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_ROOT_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "slug": "my-portal",
    "externalId": "user_123",
    "permissions": ["api.*.read_key", "api.*.create_key", "api.*.read_analytics"]
  }'

The response:

{
  "meta": { "requestId": "req_..." },
  "data": {
    "sessionId": "pst_xxx",
    "url": "https://portal.unkey.com/?session=pst_xxx",
    "expiresAt": 1742000000000
  }
}

Required parameters

Parameter	Type	Description
slug	string	Human-readable identifier for your portal configuration
externalId	string	Your user’s identifier in your system
permissions	string[]	Controls which portal tabs are visible

Optional parameters

Parameter	Type	Description
preview	boolean	Shows a “Preview mode” banner — useful for testing as a specific user

curl -X POST https://api.unkey.com/v2/portal.createSession \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_ROOT_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "slug": "my-portal",
    "externalId": "user_123",
    "permissions": ["api.*.read_key", "api.*.read_analytics"],
    "preview": true
  }'

3. Redirect your user

Send the user to the portal URL. The session ID is valid for 15 minutes and can only be used once.

// In your backend route handler
return Response.redirect(data.url, 302);

The portal will:

1. Exchange the session ID for a 24-hour browser session
2. Set an httpOnly cookie
3. Redirect to the first visible tab based on permissions

Permissions and tabs

Permissions use the RBAC tuple format {resourceType}.{resourceId}.{action}. Use * as the resourceId to grant access to all resources of that type.

Tab visibility is derived from the action segment (third part) of each permission:

Action	Tab
read_key, create_key, update_key, delete_key	API Keys
read_analytics	Analytics
Any permission present	Documentation

Examples:

• api.*.read_key → shows the Keys tab
• api.api_123.create_key → shows the Keys tab (specific resource)
• api.*.read_analytics → shows the Analytics tab
• Docs tab is visible whenever at least one permission is present

The API requires at least one permission. An empty permissions array is rejected with HTTP 400.

Session lifecycle

Token	Lifetime	Usage
Session ID (pst_xxx)	15 minutes	Single-use, exchanged for browser session
Browser session	24 hours	Stored as httpOnly cookie, used for API calls

When the browser session expires:

• If return_url is set on the portal config → redirects to {return_url}?reason=session_expired
• Otherwise → shows a “Session expired” error page

Branding

The portal supports basic white-labeling:

Setting	Default
Primary color	#2563eb
Logo	None

Logo URLs must be HTTPS.

Error responses

Scenario	Status	Message
Missing or invalid JSON body	400	Bad Request
Invalid root key	401	Unauthorized
Portal disabled	403	Portal is disabled.
Portal config not found	404	Portal configuration not found.
Invalid/expired/used session on exchange	401	Session is invalid, expired, or has already been used.