How Authentication Works

Every Eko API request is authenticated with a static key plus a per-request HMAC signature. Nothing secret ever travels on the wire in plain form.

The two keys

Request headers

Computing the secret-key

The signature binds the request to a timestamp, so it must be generated fresh for every call:

1. Base64-encode the access_key — keep this as a string.
2. Take the current timestamp in milliseconds, as a string.
3. Compute HMAC-SHA256 with the timestamp as the message and that base64 string as the key.
4. Base64-encode the result — that's the secret-key.

Send the same timestamp in secret-key-timestamp. A stale or mismatched timestamp returns 403 Forbidden.

secret-key = base64( HMAC-SHA256( message = timestamp, key = base64(access_key) ) )

Common mistake: the HMAC key is the base64 string base64(access_key), used as-is. Do not base64-decode it back to raw bytes before signing — that produces a different signature and a 403.

Code examples

Sign on your backend — the access_key must never reach a browser. The same recipe in five languages:

// Backend only. Never expose access_key in a browser.
import crypto from "node:crypto";

const accessKey = process.env.EKO_ACCESS_KEY;
const timestamp = Date.now().toString();
const encodedKey = Buffer.from(accessKey).toString("base64");
const secretKey = crypto
	.createHmac("sha256", encodedKey)
	.update(timestamp)
	.digest("base64");
// headers: { developer_key, "secret-key": secretKey, "secret-key-timestamp": timestamp }

Try it: secret-key playground

Paste an access key and a timestamp to see the exact secret-key those inputs produce — or paste a signature your own code generated and check it against ours to find out why a request is coming back 403.