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You need a root key with the permissions listed on this page. Create one in the dashboard under Settings > Root Keys, and pass it as Authorization: Bearer <root key>. See Permission reference for every permission.
Read a key by id: its name, identity, permissions, roles, credits, rate limits, and expiry. Calls POST /v2/keys.getKey. See Looking up keys.

Usage

Flags

string
required
Id of the key, starting with key_.
boolean
default:"false"
Include the plaintext key. Works only for keys created with --recoverable and needs decrypt_key. Fails with 412 unless the keyspace has key encryption turned on, which only we can do, through a support request.

Shared flags

Every unkey api command takes these. See CLI output and shared flags.
string
Root key used for the request. Falls back to UNKEY_ROOT_KEY, then to the key stored by unkey auth login.
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 config file written by unkey auth login. Falls back to UNKEY_CONFIG.
string
Output format. Falls back to UNKEY_OUTPUT. json prints the full response. Any other value prints the request ID and data.
string
Send this JSON as the whole request body instead of using the command’s flags. You can’t combine it with them.

Required permissions

api.*.read_key or api.<apiId>.read_key. --decrypt also needs api.*.decrypt_key or api.<apiId>.decrypt_key. See Root key permissions.

Examples

Read a key
Read a recoverable key's plaintext
Or send the whole request as JSON:
Raw body
Last modified on September 29, 2026