Use Squiid with
Codex
Codex needs credentials for every service your project touches. Give it one instead: SQUIID_API_KEY in .env, and every service in the catalog behind it.
What Codex is
Codex is OpenAI software engineering agent. It comes as a command line tool, an IDE extension and a cloud environment that works on tasks in your repository and opens pull requests. The cloud version runs in a sandboxed container, so anything it needs at runtime has to be supplied as an environment variable in the environment configuration rather than read from your laptop.
The problem: every agent wants keys
The moment a coding agent stops writing a component and starts wiring up a product, it needs credentials. A database URL for Supabase. A deploy token for Vercel. An API key for Resend. Another for Twilio, another for Stripe, another for whichever model provider the feature calls. Each one is a signup, a dashboard, a billing relationship and a secret that has to exist somewhere Codex can reach.
What happens next is worse than a long .env file. People paste secrets into prompts to get better answers, and keys end up in chat transcripts, in screenshots posted for help, and in committed config. Because each key belongs to a different vendor, rotating one after a leak means finding it, regenerating it and updating every place it was copied to.
The fix: one key, one convention
Squiid holds the upstream credentials for every service in the catalog. Your project gets one variable:
SQUIID_API_KEY=sq_live_xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Then every call your app or your agent makes goes to the gateway with that one key:
curl https://api.squiid.io/v1/supabase/... \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $SQUIID_API_KEY"
Official SDKs take a base URL, so most integrations are a one line change rather than a rewrite:
import { createClient } from '@supabase/supabase-js';
const db = createClient(
'https://api.squiid.io/v1/supabase',
process.env.SQUIID_API_KEY,
);
That is the gateway convention: https://api.squiid.io/v1/<service>/ with Authorization: Bearer $SQUIID_API_KEY. It is the same for every service, which is why an agent only has to learn it once. Full detail is on the gateway convention page.
Setting it up in Codex
- For the Codex CLI, configuration lives in a config file under
~/.codex/. Your project.envis still what your application reads, soSQUIID_API_KEYgoes there as usual. - For Codex cloud tasks, set environment variables and secrets in the environment settings for the repository rather than committing them. Check the Codex documentation for where that panel lives in your version, since the interface has moved between releases.
- Add the gateway convention to
AGENTS.mdin the repository root. Codex reads that file as instructions for the repo, which is the natural place to say that every outbound call goes through the Squiid gateway.
What it costs
Usage is paid from prepaid credits at par: $1 of credit is $1 at the provider, no markup. The free plan is $0/month with a 15% fee on credit top-ups and a $50 minimum top-up. Solo is $19.97/month and its top-up fee starts at 8%, falling to 6.5%, 5% and 3.5% as trailing 30-day API spend passes $100, $500 and $2,000. Team is $29.97 per seat per month for seats 1-5, $24.97 for seats 6-20 and $19.97 above that, with the same ladder one point lower. Custom pricing is 3% or less against a commitment. Subscription-priced services such as Supabase Pro at $25 a month pass through at the provider price with no fee. Credits pause at zero rather than overdrawing, with alerts at 75%, 90% and 100%. See spend controls.
Services agents ask for most
The eight services that come up first in almost every Codex project, all reachable with the same key.
Supabase
DatabasePostgres with auth, storage and realtime.
Vercel
HostingDeploy from a git push, preview per branch.
Resend
EmailTransactional email in one POST request.
Twilio
MessagingSMS, voice and phone numbers worldwide.
Cloudflare R2
StorageR2 object storage, Workers, KV and D1.
Stripe
PaymentsCheckout, subscriptions and webhooks.
Anthropic
LLM APIClaude models for app-side generation.
OpenAI
LLM APIChat, embeddings, images and audio.
Set it up in 3 steps
Add the services in Squiid
Create a Squiid account, top up credits, and click add on the services this project needs. Squiid provisions them upstream and keeps the provider credentials.
One line in .env
Put SQUIID_API_KEY=sq_live_… in .env and remove every provider key you were carrying. That is the whole secret surface of the project.
Tell Codex the convention
Write the base URL and the header into AGENTS.md so Codex generates correct calls without being reminded.
Questions people ask
How do I give Codex access to my project services?
Put SQUIID_API_KEY in the environment Codex runs in, locally through .env and in the cloud through the environment secrets panel, then document the gateway convention in AGENTS.md. Codex can then call any service in the catalog with one credential.
Where does Codex read repository instructions from?
From AGENTS.md at the repository root. Put the base URL, the header and a one line note that no provider keys belong in the repo. That guidance travels with the code, so every future task inherits it.
Does the Codex cloud sandbox have network access to Squiid?
That depends on the network policy for the environment you configured, which you control. If outbound network is restricted, allow api.squiid.io. Check the current Codex environment documentation, since these controls change.
Can Codex rotate my keys?
It does not need to. Rotation is a click in the Squiid dashboard and only affects the gateway key, not the upstream provider credentials, so nothing else in your stack has to change when you rotate.
Give Codex one key.
Not twelve.
One account, one API key, one bill and one dashboard for every service in the catalog your project needs.