API Setup & Configuration

Runway offers the most cutting-edge generative video models. You can start using our models in your application with only a few quick steps.

Set up a project

First, sign up for an account in the developer portal. After signing up, you’ll be presented with an option to create a new project. A project corresponds to your integration, and contains resources like API keys and configuration.

Create a key

Once you’ve created a project, click to the API Keys tab. You’ll create a new key, giving it a name. Call it something descriptive, like “Matt Testing” so you can revoke the key later if needed. Creating and disabling keys needs the Admin or Developer role — see Projects and roles.

The key will be presented to you only once: immediately copy it someplace safe, like a password manager. We’ll never return the key in plaintext again; if you lose the key, you’ll need to disable it and create a new one.

Removing a user from your project does not revoke their API key access. Because keys are project-scoped (not user-scoped), you must disable keys separately to fully cut off access.

Add credits

Before you can start using the API, you’ll need to add credits to your project. Credits are used to pay for the compute resources used by your models. Visit the billing tab in the developer portal to add credits to your project. A minimum payment of $10 (at $0.01 per credit) is required to get started. Adding credits needs the Admin or Billing admin role.

Start your integration

Now that you have a project and a key, you can start building on Runway Dev.

Using your API key

When you make requests to the API, you’ll need to include your API key in the headers. Our SDKs will automatically add your key if it’s specified in the RUNWAYML_API_SECRET environment variable. You can export this in your shell for test purposes like so:

macOS and Linux

export RUNWAYML_API_SECRET="key_123456789012345678901234567890"

Windows

setx RUNWAYML_API_SECRET "key_123456789012345678901234567890"

In a production environment, do not hard-code your key like this. Instead, securely load your key into environment variables using a secret manager or similar tool.