Key statuses
Every credential carries one status, shown as a badge on its card. Only Verified keys are ever used to answer a message.
| Status | What happened | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Unverified | The key hasn't been checked yet, or something reset it (new key pasted, credential re-enabled). | Click Verify key. |
| Verified | A real request to the provider succeeded. Check the Tool calling badge next to it — without it, the key is background-only. | Nothing. |
| Invalid key | The provider answered 401 or 403 — wrong, revoked, or truncated key. | Re-copy the key from the provider console and paste it in, then verify. |
| Out of credits | The provider answered 402, or its error mentioned quota / credit balance / billing. | Top up or add a payment method at the provider, then Verify key. |
| Provider down | A 5xx, a timeout, or a connection failure. Usually the provider, sometimes an unreachable base URL. | Wait and re-verify. Failover keeps chat alive in the meantime. |
| Disabled | You turned the credential off with Disable. It's excluded from the failover chain entirely. | Click Enable — it comes back as Unverified, so verify again. |
How a status changes
Two things write it: a verification you ran, and a real conversation that failed. A key that was verified this morning and ran dry at noon flips to Out of credits on its own, because the failure classification is what drives the failover chain. Nothing re-checks keys on a schedule, so a recovered provider stays flagged until you verify it or the next request succeeds against it.
The card also shows Last verified with a timestamp, and Last error with the provider's own message when there is one — that raw text is usually the fastest way to see what a provider is objecting to.
The degradation banner
When any credential is Invalid key, Out of credits, or Provider down, a red banner appears at the top of the AI Keys page:
LLM key issue detected — N of your LLM credentials need attention: OpenAI (Out of credits). Chat may be degraded or failing over to a backup key.
The Check keys button scrolls to the affected cards. The banner names each unhealthy credential and its status, and disappears once they're all healthy or disabled.
"May be degraded" is literal: if you have a verified backup, visitors notice nothing — see Backup keys & failover. If you don't, chat is down and the widget says the assistant is temporarily unavailable.
🖼️ [Image] — The red "LLM key issue detected" banner above a credential card badged "Out of credits".
Unverified is not "probably fine"
An Unverified key is skipped, exactly like a broken one. This catches people out after a key rotation: the paste worked, the card looks populated, but until verification passes, that credential is not in the chain. If it was your only key, the assistant is inactive.