Connect your API keys

Most of the toolkit needs no API keys at all. You only need them for the skills that generate images or video, because those call outside services to do the rendering.

Do you even need this page?

• Using Cowork? You can skip this entirely. The image and video skills don’t run in Cowork yet, so there are no keys to set.
• Using the desktop app, but only for research, copy, strategy, and reviews? You can skip this too.
• Using the desktop app to generate ad images or video? Then set up the keys below. It takes a few minutes, once.
• Building full landing pages on the desktop app? That counts as image work: page builds generate section imagery, so set GEMINI_API_KEY and have a real product photo URL ready (ecommerce page types require real product photography — the toolkit never AI-renders your product).

The keys

You bring your own keys, so usage is billed to your own accounts. Each key is read only from your computer’s environment, and if a skill needs a key you haven’t set, it stops and tells you rather than producing a broken or placeholder file.

Tool	What it powers	Keys you need	Get them at
Gemini	Image generation	GEMINI_API_KEY	aistudio.google.com/apikey
Creatify	Video ads + batch image generation	CREATIFY_API_ID, CREATIFY_API_KEY	app.creatify.ai → Settings → API
GitHub (optional)	Hosting local reference images	GITHUB_TOKEN, GITHUB_OWNER, GITHUB_REPO	Only needed if you reference local image files. You can skip it by passing public image URLs instead.

Adding them on the desktop app

The skills read these from your environment. Set them once and they stick. Pick your operating system:

On a Mac

1. Open the Terminal app (it comes with your Mac: press ⌘-Space, type “Terminal”, press Enter).

2. Paste these lines, replacing the placeholder text with your real keys:

   echo 'export GEMINI_API_KEY="your-key-here"' >> ~/.zshrc
   echo 'export CREATIFY_API_ID="your-id-here"' >> ~/.zshrc
   echo 'export CREATIFY_API_KEY="your-key-here"' >> ~/.zshrc

3. Quit and reopen the Claude Code desktop app so it picks up the new keys.

On Windows

1. Open PowerShell (press the Start button, type “PowerShell”, press Enter).

2. Paste these lines, replacing the placeholder text with your real keys:

   setx GEMINI_API_KEY "your-key-here"
   setx CREATIFY_API_ID "your-id-here"
   setx CREATIFY_API_KEY "your-key-here"

3. Fully quit and reopen the Claude Code desktop app. setx only takes effect in apps opened after you run it, so the restart is required.

One small dependency

Image generation also uses a Python package called requests. If a skill ever says it’s missing:

• Mac: paste into Terminal once: pip3 install requests
• Windows: install Python from python.org/downloads (tick “Add python.exe to PATH” during install), then in PowerShell run pip install requests

How you know it’s working

Run an image skill (for example, meta-image-ad-generator). If your keys are set, it generates. If a key is missing, it stops with a plain message telling you exactly which key to add. It will never quietly ship a gray placeholder where an image should be.

Stuck? See Troubleshooting.