What Are API Keys?
You're probably wondering what these "API keys" are. You can think about it like you're plugging in your own ChatGPT account into Skudio to use AI features. For our purposes, API keys are a set (or just a single key) of cryptographic passwords you will use to securely access ChatGPT models and image hosting providers. OpenAI (ChatGPT) API keys are acquired through a separate account from your normal ChatGPT account, you can create an OpenAI API platform account on platform.openai.com, this is where you will add credit to gain access to AI usage. Adding credit to your OpenAI API account is required to enable AI features within Skudio. While many of Skudio's features are able to be used natively offline, the magic really happens when you plug in AI.
Skudio is now connected to the ULIX Cloud! We took the liberty of providing an image hosting solution right out of the box so you can start processing inventory faster and easier! If you have purchased Skudio, or already have a ULIX account, you now also have a free gigabyte of cloud storage ready to go! No setup required. Just follow the setup wizard in the app, keep ULIX Cloud selected as your image host provider, and start processing inventory immediately!
If you would still rather provide your own image hosting solution, you can still choose from ImageKit (our recommended 3rd-party image host provider), Imgbb, Cloudinary, or set up your own custom URL endpoint (advanced) to host your images. All of these image hosting services have very generous free account options, and you'll likely never have to pay to use the image hosting services. By choosing to require users to provide their own API keys, we are enabling you to have access to image hosting and AI features at the lowest possible cost to you. We'd otherwise have to charge additional fees for AI tokens and image hosting, adding a crazy amount of overhead to your business. This is NOT part of our mission.
ULIX.ai does NOT have access to your API keys. Our software stores ALL of your sensitive data securely in your operating system's credentials manager. We NEVER transmit or expose any of your sensitive and private API key data publicly to the internet, our servers, or anywhere else. We recommend saving these keys in a safe place in case you need them again. Your image hosting keys can always be securely accessed through your image hosting account, however, you'll only be able to view and copy your OpenAI key once. If you ever lose access to this key, it's okay! You can always create additional keys linked to your account for free, and remove old unused keys at any time.