🔐 Authentication & Authorization

LocalAI supports two authentication modes: legacy API key authentication (simple shared keys) and a full user authentication system with roles, sessions, OAuth, and per-user usage tracking.

Legacy API Key Authentication

The simplest way to protect your LocalAI instance is with API keys. Set one or more keys via environment variable or CLI flag:

# Single key
LOCALAI_API_KEY=sk-my-secret-key localai run

# Multiple keys (comma-separated)
LOCALAI_API_KEY=key1,key2,key3 localai run

Clients provide the key via any of these methods:

• Authorization: Bearer <key> header
• x-api-key: <key> header
• xi-api-key: <key> header
• token cookie

Legacy API keys grant full admin access — there is no role separation. For multi-user deployments with role-based access, use the user authentication system instead.

API keys can also be managed at runtime through the Runtime Settings interface.

User Authentication System

The user authentication system provides:

• User accounts with email, name, and avatar
• Role-based access control (admin vs. user)
• Session-based authentication with secure cookies
• OAuth login (GitHub) and OIDC single sign-on (Keycloak, Google, Okta, Authentik, etc.)
• Per-user API keys for programmatic access
• Admin route gating — management endpoints are restricted to admins
• Per-user usage tracking with token consumption metrics

Enabling Authentication

Set LOCALAI_AUTH=true or provide a GitHub OAuth Client ID or OIDC Client ID (which auto-enables auth):

# Enable with SQLite (default, stored at {DataPath}/database.db)
LOCALAI_AUTH=true localai run

# Enable with GitHub OAuth
GITHUB_CLIENT_ID=your-client-id \
GITHUB_CLIENT_SECRET=your-client-secret \
LOCALAI_BASE_URL=http://localhost:8080 \
localai run

# Enable with OIDC provider (e.g. Keycloak)
LOCALAI_OIDC_ISSUER=https://keycloak.example.com/realms/myrealm \
LOCALAI_OIDC_CLIENT_ID=your-client-id \
LOCALAI_OIDC_CLIENT_SECRET=your-client-secret \
LOCALAI_BASE_URL=http://localhost:8080 \
localai run

# Enable with PostgreSQL
LOCALAI_AUTH=true \
LOCALAI_AUTH_DATABASE_URL=postgres://user:pass@host/dbname \
localai run

Configuration Reference

Disabling Local Authentication

If you want to enforce OAuth/OIDC-only login and prevent users from registering or logging in with email/password, set LOCALAI_DISABLE_LOCAL_AUTH=true (or pass --disable-local-auth):

# OAuth-only setup (no email/password)
LOCALAI_DISABLE_LOCAL_AUTH=true \
GITHUB_CLIENT_ID=your-client-id \
GITHUB_CLIENT_SECRET=your-client-secret \
LOCALAI_BASE_URL=http://localhost:8080 \
localai run

When disabled:

• The login page will not show email/password forms (the UI checks the providers list from /api/auth/status)
• POST /api/auth/register returns 403 Forbidden
• POST /api/auth/login returns 403 Forbidden
• OAuth/OIDC login continues to work normally

Roles

There are two roles:

• Admin: Full access to all endpoints, including model management, backend configuration, system settings, traces, agents, and user management.
• User: Access to inference endpoints only — chat completions, embeddings, image/video/audio generation, TTS, MCP chat, and their own usage statistics.

The first user to sign in is automatically assigned the admin role. Additional users can be promoted to admin via the admin user management API or by setting LOCALAI_ADMIN_EMAIL to their email address.

Registration Modes

Invite Links

Admins can generate single-use, time-limited invite links from the Users → Invites tab in the web UI, or via the API:

# Create an invite link (default: expires in 7 days)
curl -X POST http://localhost:8080/api/auth/admin/invites \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer <admin-key>" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"expiresInHours": 168}'

# List all invites
curl http://localhost:8080/api/auth/admin/invites \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer <admin-key>"

# Revoke an unused invite
curl -X DELETE http://localhost:8080/api/auth/admin/invites/<invite-id> \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer <admin-key>"

# Check if an invite code is valid (public, no auth required)
curl http://localhost:8080/api/auth/invite/<code>/check

Share the invite URL (/invite/<code>) with the user. When they open it, the registration form is pre-filled with the invite code. Invite codes are single-use — once consumed, they cannot be reused. Expired or used invites are rejected.

For GitHub OAuth, the invite code is passed as a query parameter to the login URL (/api/auth/github/login?invite_code=<code>) and stored in a cookie during the OAuth flow.

Admin-Only Endpoints

When authentication is enabled, the following endpoints require admin role:

Model & Backend Management:

• GET /api/models, POST /api/models/install/*, POST /api/models/delete/*
• GET /api/backends, POST /api/backends/install/*, POST /api/backends/delete/*
• GET /api/operations, POST /api/operations/*/cancel
• GET /models/available, GET /models/galleries, GET /models/jobs/*
• GET /backends, GET /backends/available, GET /backends/galleries

System & Monitoring:

• GET /api/traces, POST /api/traces/clear
• GET /api/backend-traces, POST /api/backend-traces/clear
• GET /api/backend-logs/*, POST /api/backend-logs/*/clear
• GET /api/resources, GET /api/settings, POST /api/settings
• GET /system, GET /backend/monitor, POST /backend/shutdown

P2P:

• GET /api/p2p/*

Agents & Jobs:

• All /api/agents/* endpoints
• All /api/agent/tasks/* and /api/agent/jobs/* endpoints

User-Accessible Endpoints (all authenticated users):

• POST /v1/chat/completions, POST /v1/embeddings, POST /v1/completions
• POST /v1/images/generations, POST /v1/audio/*, POST /tts, POST /vad, POST /video
• GET /v1/models, POST /v1/tokenize, POST /v1/detection
• POST /v1/mcp/chat/completions, POST /v1/messages, POST /v1/responses
• POST /stores/*, GET /api/cors-proxy
• GET /version, GET /api/features, GET /swagger/*, GET /metrics
• GET /api/auth/usage (own usage data)

Web UI Access Control

When auth is enabled, the React UI sidebar dynamically shows/hides sections based on the user’s role:

• All users see: Home, Chat, Images, Video, TTS, Sound, Talk, Usage, API docs link
• Admins also see: Install Models, Agents section (Agents, Skills, Memory, MCP CI Jobs), System section (Backends, Traces, Swarm, System, Settings)

Admin-only pages are also protected at the router level — navigating directly to an admin URL redirects non-admin users to the home page.

GitHub OAuth Setup

1. Create a GitHub OAuth App at Settings → Developer settings → OAuth Apps → New OAuth App
2. Set the Authorization callback URL to {LOCALAI_BASE_URL}/api/auth/github/callback
3. Set GITHUB_CLIENT_ID and GITHUB_CLIENT_SECRET environment variables
4. Set LOCALAI_BASE_URL to your publicly-accessible URL

OIDC Setup

Any OIDC-compliant identity provider can be used for single sign-on. This includes Keycloak, Google, Okta, Authentik, Azure AD, and many others.

Steps:

1. Create a client/application in your OIDC provider
2. Set the redirect URL to {LOCALAI_BASE_URL}/api/auth/oidc/callback
3. Set the three environment variables: LOCALAI_OIDC_ISSUER, LOCALAI_OIDC_CLIENT_ID, LOCALAI_OIDC_CLIENT_SECRET

LocalAI uses OIDC auto-discovery (the /.well-known/openid-configuration endpoint) and requests the standard scopes: openid, profile, email.

Provider examples:

# Keycloak
LOCALAI_OIDC_ISSUER=https://keycloak.example.com/realms/myrealm

# Google
LOCALAI_OIDC_ISSUER=https://accounts.google.com

# Authentik
LOCALAI_OIDC_ISSUER=https://authentik.example.com/application/o/localai/

# Okta
LOCALAI_OIDC_ISSUER=https://your-org.okta.com

For OIDC, invite codes work the same way as GitHub OAuth — the invite code is passed as a query parameter to the login URL (/api/auth/oidc/login?invite_code=<code>) and stored in a cookie during the OAuth flow.

User API Keys

Authenticated users can create personal API keys for programmatic access:

# Create an API key (requires session auth)
curl -X POST http://localhost:8080/api/auth/api-keys \
  -H "Cookie: session=<session-id>" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"name": "My Script Key"}'

User API keys inherit the creating user’s role. Admin keys grant admin access; user keys grant user-level access.

Auth API Endpoints

Usage Tracking

When authentication is enabled, LocalAI automatically tracks per-user token usage for inference endpoints. Usage data includes:

• Prompt tokens, completion tokens, and total tokens per request
• Model used and endpoint called
• Request duration
• Timestamp for time-series aggregation

Viewing Usage

Usage is accessible through the Usage page in the web UI (visible to all authenticated users) or via the API:

# Get your own usage (default: last 30 days)
curl http://localhost:8080/api/auth/usage?period=month \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer <key>"

# Admin: get all users' usage
curl http://localhost:8080/api/auth/admin/usage?period=week \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer <admin-key>"

# Admin: filter by specific user
curl "http://localhost:8080/api/auth/admin/usage?period=month&user_id=<user-id>" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer <admin-key>"

Period values:

• day — last 24 hours, bucketed by hour
• week — last 7 days, bucketed by day
• month — last 30 days, bucketed by day (default)
• all — all time, bucketed by month

Response format:

{
  "usage": [
    {
      "bucket": "2026-03-18",
      "model": "gpt-4",
      "user_id": "abc-123",
      "user_name": "Alice",
      "prompt_tokens": 1500,
      "completion_tokens": 800,
      "total_tokens": 2300,
      "request_count": 12
    }
  ],
  "totals": {
    "prompt_tokens": 1500,
    "completion_tokens": 800,
    "total_tokens": 2300,
    "request_count": 12
  }
}

Usage Dashboard

The web UI Usage page provides:

• Period selector — switch between day, week, month, and all-time views
• Summary cards — total requests, prompt tokens, completion tokens, total tokens
• By Model table — per-model breakdown with visual usage bars
• By User table (admin only) — per-user breakdown across all models

Combining Auth Modes

Legacy API keys and user authentication can be used simultaneously. When both are configured:

1. User sessions and user API keys are checked first
2. Legacy API keys are checked as fallback — they grant admin-level access
3. This allows a gradual migration from shared API keys to per-user accounts

Build Requirements

The user authentication system requires CGO for SQLite support. It is enabled with the auth build tag, which is included by default in Docker builds.

# Building from source with auth support
GO_TAGS=auth make build

# Or directly with go build
go build -tags auth ./...

The default Dockerfile includes GO_TAGS="auth", so all Docker images ship with auth support. When building from source without the auth tag, setting LOCALAI_AUTH=true has no effect — the system operates without authentication.