Authentication

The CLI authenticates with your API key, from UseNadia → Settings → Developers — the same key as the Public API. There is no browser login, and no OAuth: OAuth tokens are for an app that acts for other UseNadia users, which a CLI on your own machine is not.

Saving the key

nadia auth login               # asks for the key, checks it, saves it
echo "$KEY" | nadia auth login # same, from a pipe

auth login checks the key against the API before saving it, to ~/.config/nadia/credentials.json, readable by you only.

nadia auth status   # which key and URL are used, and whether they work
nadia auth logout   # removes the saved file

Without a file

For a CI job, a container or an agent, an environment variable is enough:

export NADIA_API_KEY=your_api_key_here

Where the key and the URL come from

First one set wins:

	Key	API URL
1	--api-key <key>	--api-url <url>
2	NADIA_API_KEY	NADIA_API_URL
3	~/.config/nadia/credentials.json	the URL saved by auth login
4	—	https://app.usenadia.com/api

Note

The environment wins over the saved file: a script that exports NADIA_API_KEY is never silently talking as whoever last ran auth login on the machine.

The same key connects an AI agent over MCP: one key, three doors (API, CLI, MCP). Regenerating it in Settings revokes all three.