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Every request to the NitroTranslate API must be authenticated using the Authorization header. The API supports three schemes.

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Basic

The Nitro API uses HTTP Basic authentication where your API key is the username and the password is left blank. API keys are generated per account and managed on the Settings page. Pass the API key with curl’s -u flag, leaving the password empty (note the trailing colon): 
curl https://api.nitrotranslate.com/v1/account \
  -u "apikey:"
This sends an Authorization: Basic <base64(apikey:)> header — the API key followed by a colon with nothing after it. You can also set the header directly: 
curl https://api.nitrotranslate.com/v1/account \
  -H "Authorization: Basic <base64(apikey:)>"
When you generate an API key, you can just copy the ready-made Authorization header value instead of Base64-encoding it yourself.

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Bearer

The same API key can also be passed as a bearer token, which is often more convenient for server-to-server integrations: 
curl https://api.nitrotranslate.com/v1/account \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer <apikey>"

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Payment

Endpoints that draw down funds — such as Translate — accept an MPP payment authorization in place of standing account credentials. The credential is sent on the same Authorization header with the Payment scheme: 
curl https://api.nitrotranslate.com/v1/translate \
  -H "Authorization: Payment <credential>" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{ "source_language": "en", "target_languages": ["de"], "resource": { "type": "text/plain", "data": "Hello" } }'
Use Payment authorization when settling an order’s cost with a per-request payment credential rather than against your prefunded account balance. This is the basis of the no-account Agentic flow, where a first request without an Authorization header returns a 402 challenge and you retry with the Payment credential.