Why you never need to paste a secret key

Paste a service_role key or a database password into Claude Code, Codex or Cursor and a good agent will stop: it will not echo it, may refuse to use it, and asks you to rotate it. It is right. A pasted secret lives on in the chat transcript, in the model provider's logs and in whatever the agent writes next, it grants everything, and it never expires.

Scribase is built so you never have to. Every way an agent gets access is either a browser approval (no secret leaves the console) or a token designed to be shared with an agent.

Three ways in, none of them a secret key

1. scribase login: approve the agent in your browser

The agent runs one command and shows you a link and a short code:

scribase login --json

{"event":"device_authorization","verification_uri":"https://console.scribase.com/device","verification_uri_complete":"https://console.scribase.com/device?user_code=SCRB-7F3K-Q2MX","user_code":"SCRB-7F3K-Q2MX","expires_in":600}

You open the link (the console asks you to sign in if needed), check that the code matches, and see who is asking and for what: the client name, the requested scopes, the address the request came from. Pick the organization, one project (or all), the access level, the capabilities to allow and how long it lasts (8 hours by default), then Approve or Deny.

The command, which has been polling, receives its own agent token and stores it in the operating system keychain (macOS Keychain, or the Secret Service on Linux through secret-tool), falling back to ~/.config/scribase/credentials with mode 0600. It never prints the token; the last line is only the outcome:

{"ok":true,"status":"approved","organization_id":"acme","project_id":"web","scopes":["project:web:write","sql:write","migrations:write"],"expires_at":1790028000,"stored_in":"keychain"}

npx scribase login does the same without installing the full CLI, and npx scribase init runs this flow automatically when you are not signed in. Agents whose shell only shows output after a command ends can use --no-wait: it prints the link and exits, and running scribase login again picks the same request back up. This is the OAuth 2.0 Device Authorization Grant (RFC 8628); see Device login API.

2. MCP with OAuth

Add the hosted MCP server without a header, and your editor opens the Scribase consent screen the first time it connects; you choose the access there. See Connect your agent.

3. A temporary project

No account at all:

npx scribase init --temp --yes --json

The agent gets a 72-hour project and an agent token scoped to it; you keep the project by opening the claim link. See Temporary databases.

Paste-safe agent tokens (scb_agt_)

Sometimes pasting is simplest: you are in a hosted agent with no browser, or you want to hand one project to one session. Agent tokens are made for that. On Account > Access tokens, Copy for your AI agent creates one and copies a message the agent understands:

Scribase agent token (scoped to project web, read/write, expires in 8h,
revocable at https://console.scribase.com/account/tokens). Designed to be
shared with coding agents: scb_agt_1p-rw-sqlw-mig-fn-x2609260412_3f9a...

The token describes itself. After scb_agt_ comes a short, readable summary, then the secret:

The summary is for people and agents to read; the server ignores it and trusts only the token's digest, so editing it just makes the token invalid.

Why it is safe to share:

• Scoped. One project by default, and only the capabilities you chose. It can never do more than you can, and can never mint tokens, manage members, billing or SSO.
• Short-lived. 8 hours by default for copy-paste tokens.
• Revocable. One click on the tokens page, effective on the next request.
• Audited. Every request it makes is recorded (method, path, status, address) under Activity.
• No secret keys. Without the keys:secret scope, the keys route returns only the public (anon) key, and SQL never runs as a superuser. Copy-paste tokens never carry keys:secret.

The worst a leaked copy-paste token can do is what you allowed on one project for a few hours, and you can see and stop it.

Never paste these

If one of these ended up in a chat, revoke or rotate it now (tokens under Account > Access tokens, keys in the project's settings), then sign the agent in with scribase login.

What our agent rules say

The rules and skills we ship for Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and Windsurf (see Build with AI agents) tell the agent: never ask for API keys, service-role keys or passwords; authenticate with scribase login, or npx scribase init --temp for a throwaway project; a pasted scb_agt_ token is designed for agents and fine to use (kept in SCRIBASE_ACCESS_TOKEN or the gitignored env file, never committed); anything else that looks like a secret is not repeated back, and the user is asked to revoke it and use login.