API authentication

How to authenticate with the Rime TTS API using a bearer token.

Every request to the Rime API requires a bearer token in the Authorization header.

Get an API key

An API key can synthesize speech against your account. Keep it on the server and treat it like a password.

1. Sign in to the Rime dashboard.
2. In the Rime dashboard, open API Tokens.
3. Create a token and copy its value.

Use the token

This request authenticates with a bearer token and returns MP3 audio:

curl --request POST \
  --url https://users.rime.ai/v1/rime-tts \
  --header 'Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY' \
  --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --header 'Accept: audio/mpeg' \
  --data '{"speaker":"astra","text":"hello","modelId":"coda","lang":"en"}'

Use the same header for the HTTP, WebSocket, metadata, and utility endpoints.

CLI authentication

The rime CLI manages the key locally. Run rime login once, and the CLI stores the key at ~/.rime/rime.toml. You can also set it with the RIME_CLI_API_KEY environment variable.

On-prem authentication

The on-prem API service accepts the same Authorization: Bearer … header. You can also configure RIME_API_KEY for the deployment so callers don’t need to send the header. See the on-prem quickstart for details.

Common auth errors

If your request fails authentication, the API returns 401 Unauthorized with a short plain-text body explaining why:

Status	Body	Cause
401	missing headers	No Authorization header was sent.
401	invalid api key	The token is not recognized, or it was sent without the Bearer scheme.

Always send the header as Authorization: Bearer <token> (capital B). The token alone, without Bearer, is rejected.

Related

• Quickstart: TTS in five minutes
• API reference index
• CLI authentication commands