Connect your AI accounts

Connect an AI account of your own so your agents have a model to work with, and add a second later so the work carries on when the first reaches its limit. Nothing runs until the first account is connected: a new installation asks for one before it shows you anything else, and this guide covers the same page you meet then.

This is the one setup that starts on a page rather than in a conversation, because until an account exists there is no assistant to ask. Once there is, an API key can be handed over in the chat: "add my API key for this provider". Your assistant asks for the key in a secure prompt, keeps it in the vault, connects the account and tests it, and it appears on the Providers page like any other. A subscription still signs in on the page, because the provider's own sign-in has to open in your browser.

Before you start

You need either a subscription you already hold with an AI provider, such as a ChatGPT plan, or an API key copied from that provider's own dashboard. Have it to hand: the sign-in happens on the provider's own page, and the key is pasted in one go.

1. Open the Providers page

Go to Admin > Providers (/admin/providers), reached from the account card at the foot of the navigation.

You should now see one card per connected account, or, if there are none yet, an invitation to connect your first.

2. Choose a provider

Press Add provider. The subscription sign-ins come first, the others below them, and More providers (API key) at the foot opens the longer list plus a custom option for a service of your own. Player One works with a wide range of AI providers, and this list is the current one for your installation.

Watch: adding a provider, on the same dialog, plays a short video.

You should now see the connect screen for the provider you picked.

3. Sign in, or paste your key

For a subscription, press the sign-in button. The provider's own page opens, you sign in there, and then you either come straight back or copy a code, or the address of the page that failed to load, into the box waiting for it. Your password never passes through Player One.

For an API key, paste the key and save. It is held in your installation's vault, where your agents can use it without ever seeing it.

You should now see a new card naming the account you signed in as and the plan it is on.

4. Test it

Press Test on the card. The check runs against that one account, so a healthy neighbour cannot cover for a broken one.

You should now see a green tick beside the button. A cross means it failed, and the reason opens underneath the card.

5. Set the order, if you have more than one

Drag the cards into the order you want. Across providers, the top one's best model answers when nothing else has been chosen. Within one provider, accounts sit together as a linked group and are tried in their order: the first carries the work, the next takes over when it hits its limit.

Open a card to give that connection a short name, such as work or personal, which then identifies it everywhere.

You should now see the order hold when you leave the page and return.

6. Check that a chat uses it

Open New chat (/) and ask for anything. Underneath the reply, Player One names the model that answered and what the exchange cost.

Choosing between a subscription and an API key

A subscription you already hold is usually subsidised: a flat monthly fee, with the provider's own limits. You cannot overspend on it, and at a limit you wait rather than pay more, which suits everyday work at a human pace.

An API key is billed per token instead: you pay for what you use, with no ceiling but a bill that follows usage. That suits work which has to run whatever the hour, such as jobs and scheduled tasks that must not stop at a limit.

Most people connect both and let the order decide. Tokens, cost and caching works through the money in more detail.

If something goes wrong

The test fails. The card gives the reason, usually a stray space in the key, a key from a different account, or a plan that does not cover what is being asked of it. Remove the card with the bin button, pressed twice to confirm, and connect again.

An amber Cooling tag. A rate limit that clears itself. Nothing needs fixing, and your other accounts carry the work meanwhile.

A red Signed out tag. That sign-in has expired for good and automatic retries have stopped. You also see an alert on your Dashboard (/dashboard), a crossed-out meter in the top bar and a note in your main chat. The only fix is to sign in again, with the refresh button beside Test.

A red Off tag. The account was parked deliberately, for a set number of hours or until someone turns it back on. The button on the card lifts it.

Where next

Models and providers covers choosing which model answers, for one chat, one agent or everything.

Your first hour picks up the rest of the setup, and Your installation covers the other Admin pages.