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Create a root key with the permissions listed on this page under Root Keys in the dashboard sidebar. CLI commands can instead use a session from unkey login with the required permissions. See Permission reference for every permission.
Verify a key the way your API would. An invalid key still returns 200, with valid: false, and the command exits successfully. Check data.valid and data.code, not the exit status. Calls POST /v2/keys.verifyKey. See Verifying keys.

Usage

Flags

string
required
The key to verify, including its prefix.
string
JSON object with cost, the number of credits this verification uses. Defaults to 1.
string
Migration id, to verify a key that hasn’t been imported yet. The key is imported on first use.
string
Permission query the key must satisfy, for example documents.read AND (billing.read OR billing.write).
string
JSON array of rate limits to check, each with name and optional cost, limit, and duration overrides.
string[]
Comma-separated key=value tags recorded on the verification for analytics. At most 20 tags, each up to 512 characters.

Shared flags

Every resource command takes these. See CLI output and shared flags.
string
Root key used for the request. Falls back to UNKEY_ROOT_KEY, then stored credentials, including a CLI session. See CLI authentication for the full precedence order.
string
default:"https://api.unkey.com"
Base URL of the API. Falls back to UNKEY_API_BASE_URL. You don’t normally need to set it.
string
default:"~/.unkey/config.toml"
Path of the TOML config file. Falls back to UNKEY_CONFIG. An explicit --config takes precedence over a stored CLI session. Browser login stores a session, not a root key in this file. See CLI authentication.
enum
default:"human"
Use human (default) for name-first summary tables and single-response trees, or json for the unchanged full response envelope, including all fields and pagination. Trees wrap long values without truncation. Terminal tables use relative timestamps and may shorten display names and descriptions, but never identifiers, slugs, or credentials. Redirected human output keeps complete values and uses RFC3339 UTC timestamps. Falls back to UNKEY_OUTPUT; other values are rejected. --json also selects JSON output. Add --debug to print the request ID to stderr. See Output formats.
boolean
Print the successful response’s request ID to stderr, separate from stdout.
boolean
Print the full response as JSON. Takes precedence over a valid --output or UNKEY_OUTPUT value.
string
Send this JSON as the whole request body instead of using the command’s flags. You can’t combine it with them. The endpoint also accepts keyspaces, a list of up to five keyspace ids that the key has to be in. It has no flag of its own, and a key outside them comes back as NOT_FOUND without spending credits or rate limits.

Required permissions

unkey:v1:<workspace_id>:projects/<project_id>/keyspaces/<keyspace_id>/keys/*#verify for the keyspace the key belongs to. Use the keyspace’s project ID and keyspace ID, not its API ID. A missing permission never returns 403. Whether the root key has no verify permission or has one for a different keyspace, you get 200 with valid: false and code NOT_FOUND. See Root key permissions.

Examples

Verify
Verify with a permission query and tags
Or send the whole request as JSON:
Raw body
Last modified on November 11, 2026