tribb is BYOK — bring your own key. The AI features run on a model-provider API key that you supply, not on a plan you buy from us. That's a deliberate arrangement, and it has three consequences worth stating plainly.

  • You pay your provider directly. tribb adds no metering and no markup. Usage is billed by whoever issued the key, at their rates.
  • Your reading isn't training data. Calls go to the provider you chose, on your key. tribb doesn't resell your usage or feed your reading into anyone's model.
  • The key is optional. Without one, tribb is a complete reader — subscribe, import, triage, newsletters, all of it. AI actions are simply unavailable until you add a key.

Supported providers

Add a key for any of these under Settings → Keys & tokens:

  • Anthropic — Claude (Haiku, Sonnet, Opus).
  • OpenAI — GPT-5.4 mini, GPT-5.4, GPT-5.5.
  • Google — Gemini (Flash and Pro).
  • Custom (OpenAI-compatible) — any endpoint that speaks the OpenAI API. This one also takes a base URL, so a self-hosted or proxied model works.

Each provider offers a curated model list, plus a free-text field to type any model id the provider accepts.

Where to add your key

  1. Open Settings → Keys & tokens. The panel is headed Bring your own AI.
  2. Pick a provider, paste the key, and choose save. For a custom provider, also enter its base URL.
  3. Your first key becomes the active key automatically. On the active key you pick the model, and optionally enter its per-million-token input and output prices so the stats page can estimate cost.

You can hold keys for several providers at once and switch which one is active; the active key is the one that runs your AI actions.

What the key unlocks

The active key powers two features:

  • Summaries — a short, on-demand summary of an item, generated in the reader from the item's full text.
  • Digests — a synthesized, cited rundown across items.

There is no AI ranking or auto-triage. downrank ("less like this") is a manual triage action you take by hand, not a model deciding for you — it needs no key.

What happens without a key

Reading, subscribing, OPML import, newsletters, and every triage action work with no key at all. If you trigger a summary or digest before adding one, the request returns a 412 and tells you to add a key in settings — nothing breaks, the AI action just no-ops until a key is on file.

How the key is stored

Keys are encrypted at rest with AES-256-GCM and decrypted only at call time, when tribb makes the request to your provider on your behalf. The settings panel shows only the last four characters of a stored key. You can revoke a key at any time from the same panel, which deletes it.