# Auth, billing, and storage Learn how the operational pieces fit together: who can sign in, what API keys can do, how billing state affects writes, and where your bytes live. ## Sign in with a browser session Humans use browser sessions for the dashboard through the hosted InstantML identity flow. Browser sessions are scoped to a workspace and role. ## Authenticate automation with API keys SDKs, uploaders, importers, exports, and automation use bearer API keys. ```bash export INSTANTML_API_KEY="instantml_..." ``` API keys can be unrestricted for a workspace or restricted to a project, depending on how they were created. Create and manage keys in [Settings and API keys](/docs/dashboard/settings-api-keys.md). ## Understand billing states Paid signup and billing changes go through hosted checkout or portal flows. When a workspace is pending payment or payment-failed, product write routes can return a payment-required error. Reads keep working; only writes are blocked. Free workspaces are blocked at included monthly API request and hosted storage allowances. Paid Pro and Premium subscriptions attach Stripe-metered overage items for hosted storage and API requests. See [Pricing, limits, and billing](/docs/guides/pricing-limits-billing.md) for the current plan allowances and rates. ## Know where hosted data lives Uploaded artifact bytes are stored by the API in the workspace's configured artifact backend. The public artifact row returns opaque InstantML metadata rather than a raw storage URL. Downloads go through: ```text GET /api/artifacts/:artifact_id/download ``` InstantML-hosted workspace data currently uses InstantML-owned ClickHouse on Google Cloud for User Data and tenant databases. Hosted artifact bytes use private Cloudflare R2 buckets and stay separate from metric ingestion. ## Use customer-owned storage Teams that need stronger data-control boundaries can use the Premium customer-owned storage setup, where product data routes to their self-hosted GCP ClickHouse deployment. Hosted artifact bytes and customer-owned ClickHouse bytes are accounted for differently in usage surfaces; InstantML storage guardrails count only artifact bytes stored by InstantML. See [Customer-owned GCP ClickHouse](/docs/guides/customer-owned-clickhouse.md) for setup. ## Keep secrets out of version control Do not commit: - API keys. - Session cookies. - Auth provider secrets. - ClickHouse credentials. - Object-storage credentials. ## Next steps - [Settings and API keys](/docs/dashboard/settings-api-keys.md) - [Pricing, limits, and billing](/docs/guides/pricing-limits-billing.md) - [Customer-owned GCP ClickHouse](/docs/guides/customer-owned-clickhouse.md) - [Export, usage, and limits](/docs/guides/export-usage-limits.md) - [Install and authenticate the SDK](/docs/sdk/installation-auth.md) ## Agent navigation - [Docs index](/llms.txt) - [Full docs bundle](/llms-full.txt) ### Get Started - [Overview](/docs/index.md) - [Quickstart](/docs/quickstart.md) - [Core Concepts](/docs/concepts/core-concepts.md) - [Pricing](/docs/pricing.md) - [Benchmarks](/docs/benchmarks.md) - [Examples](/docs/guides/examples.md) - [Troubleshooting](/docs/troubleshooting.md) ### SDK - [Installation Auth](/docs/sdk/installation-auth.md) - [Logging](/docs/sdk/logging.md) - [Tracing](/docs/sdk/tracing.md) - [Metrics Steps](/docs/sdk/metrics-steps.md) - [Config Tags Notes](/docs/sdk/config-tags-notes.md) - [Artifacts Checkpoints](/docs/sdk/artifacts-checkpoints.md) - [Rich Objects](/docs/sdk/rich-objects.md) - [Distributed Training](/docs/sdk/distributed-training.md) - [Console System Integrations](/docs/sdk/console-system-integrations.md) - [Reliability](/docs/sdk/reliability.md) - [Cli Login](/docs/sdk/cli-login.md) - [Querying Data](/docs/sdk/querying-data.md) - [Agent Mcp](/docs/sdk/agent-mcp.md) - [Examples Patterns](/docs/sdk/examples-patterns.md) ### Integrations - [Overview](/docs/integrations/overview.md) - [Pytorch Lightning](/docs/integrations/pytorch-lightning.md) - [Huggingface Transformers](/docs/integrations/huggingface-transformers.md) - [Keras](/docs/integrations/keras.md) - [Wandb](/docs/integrations/wandb.md) ### Dashboard - [Tour](/docs/dashboard/tour.md) - [Organizations Workspaces](/docs/dashboard/organizations-workspaces.md) - [Runs Workspace](/docs/dashboard/runs-workspace.md) - [Metrics Charts](/docs/dashboard/metrics-charts.md) - [Run Detail](/docs/dashboard/run-detail.md) - [Traces](/docs/dashboard/traces.md) - [Compare Runs](/docs/dashboard/compare-runs.md) - [Research Dashboards](/docs/dashboard/research-dashboards.md) - [Artifacts Files](/docs/dashboard/artifacts-files.md) - [Run Health](/docs/dashboard/alerts.md) - [Datasets](/docs/dashboard/datasets.md) - [Checkpoints](/docs/dashboard/checkpoints.md) - [Reports](/docs/dashboard/reports.md) - [Settings Api Keys](/docs/dashboard/settings-api-keys.md) - [Api Tab](/docs/dashboard/api-tab.md) - [Onboarding Team Billing](/docs/dashboard/onboarding-team-billing.md) ### Data - [Imports](/docs/guides/imports.md) - [W&B alternative](/docs/guides/wandb-alternative.md) - [InstantML vs MLflow](/docs/guides/instantml-vs-mlflow.md) - [W&B import guide](/docs/guides/wandb-import-guide.md) - [W&B and Neptune imports](/docs/guides/wandb-neptune-imports.md) - [Export Usage Limits](/docs/guides/export-usage-limits.md) - [Pricing Limits Billing](/docs/guides/pricing-limits-billing.md) - [Auth Billing Storage](/docs/guides/auth-billing-storage.md) (current page) - [Customer Owned Clickhouse](/docs/guides/customer-owned-clickhouse.md) - [Observability](/docs/guides/observability.md) ### API **Practical API guides** - [Authentication](/docs/api/authentication.md) - [Errors And Limits](/docs/api/errors-and-limits.md) - [Health Observability](/docs/api/health-observability.md) - [Projects Runs](/docs/api/projects-runs.md) - [Metrics Series](/docs/api/metrics-series.md) - [Attributes Objects](/docs/api/attributes-objects.md) - [Artifacts](/docs/api/artifacts.md) - [Reports](/docs/api/reports.md) - [Iframe Embeds](/docs/api/iframe-embeds.md) - [Import Export Usage](/docs/api/import-export-usage.md) - [Dashboard Control State](/docs/api/dashboard-control-state.md) **Architecture** - [System Overview](/docs/architecture/system-overview.md) - [Service Planes](/docs/architecture/service-planes.md) - [Storage Model](/docs/architecture/storage-model.md) - [Google Clickhouse](/docs/architecture/google-clickhouse.md) - [Auth Tenancy](/docs/architecture/auth-tenancy.md) - [Schema Reference](/docs/architecture/schema-reference.md) ### API Reference - [API Reference](/docs/api-reference.md)