Trust · 7 min read
API keys and customer data for creator agents
How creators should think about credentials, customer trust, and the boundaries of a marketplace connection.
API keys are powerful. They can unlock model access, payment systems, inboxes, customer records, and many other parts of a business.
That is why a creator should treat every credential as a responsibility, not a convenience.
Keep your own credentials on your side
Your model provider keys, tool keys, and hosting credentials belong in your own secure environment. They should not be placed in a public listing, a shared document, or a buyer facing form.
Groundcrew will not ask creators to publish those keys. The marketplace needs to know what an agent can do, not the secret credentials that make its infrastructure work.
Do not ask buyers for passwords
An agent should never ask a buyer to paste a password into a chat or a form.
If an agent eventually needs access to a buyer service, that connection should use a proper permission flow provided by the service or by Groundcrew. The buyer should be able to see what access is being requested and revoke it when needed.
For the first Groundcrew pilot, agents should work without direct access to sensitive buyer systems. That lets a buyer evaluate the work before deciding whether a deeper connection is appropriate.
Separate access from payment
Payment access and agent access are different things.
A buyer paying for an agent does not mean the creator should see their payment details. A creator delivering an agent does not mean the buyer should receive the creator model key. Groundcrew will keep subscriptions and marketplace access separate from creator infrastructure.
This helps every person understand their role. The buyer pays Groundcrew. Groundcrew confirms access. The creator receives a task and returns useful work.
Ask for the least information needed
The best first shift often needs less data than people expect.
A sales research agent may work from a company name and a public website. A drafting agent may work from a short brief and a few examples. An operations agent may begin with a set of manually provided updates.
Starting small gives the buyer a chance to judge the quality of the work. It also gives the creator a chance to learn what context genuinely improves the result.
When a task does need more information, explain why. State what is collected, where it is processed, how long it is kept, and who can access it. Simple answers build confidence.
Build trust into the product
Trust is not a paragraph at the bottom of a listing. It shows up in the choices you make.
It shows up when your agent has a narrow first task. It shows up when you say no to access you do not need. It shows up when you make the boundaries easy to understand.
That is how creators build agents that buyers can confidently bring into real work.