Make an API key

An API key lets another tool talk to your system: Make, n8n, your website, or a developer's script. Each key signs in as a role you choose, so it sees and changes exactly what a person with that role could.

Steps

1. Open Settings, System, Connections, API and webhooks and the API keys tab.
2. Press New key.
3. Pick A tool or a developer (not An AI agent (MCP)).
4. Under What it is for, name it after the tool ("Make", "the website").
5. Under What it may do, pick the smallest role that does the job. The admin role is never offered.
6. Press Make the key.
7. Copy the key straight into the tool. It is shown once.
8. Try it with the line under Try it, which lists five contacts.

Good to know

• Using the API on the same page gives the Address, the Header the key goes in, the query language, examples, and the live list of Tables and fields in this system.
• Each key shows how many calls it has made and when it was last used.
• Revoke stops a key at once, and whatever uses it.
• Each key may make a set number of calls a minute (120 unless your admin changed it). A key that keeps hitting the limit is a tool worth looking at.
• What a key changes is in the activity log under its name. API keys never appear on the team list.
• For an AI agent, make the key from the AI connections card instead: see Connect AI tools.

If something goes wrong

• The key was lost. It cannot be shown again. Revoke it and make another.
• A call is refused with a reason. That is the system's own rule speaking, in words: the role may not do it, or a value is not allowed.
• Too many requests. The key passed its calls a minute. Slow the tool down.
• The API keys tab is missing. It needs the right to change connections, and Simple mode hides it. See Simple mode.