Get Started

API Keys & Providers

Flunkey is bring-your-own-key: no accounts, no markup, no Flunkey servers. Pick one provider to start — you can add others later.

Picking a provider

Provider	Best for	Notes
Groq (Whisper Turbo)	Default for dictation	Fast, inexpensive transcription; recommended starting point
OpenAI	Transcription + F9/F10 quality	Use transcription models for F8, chat models for F9/F10
Gemini	Native audio + generous tiers	Good all-rounder if you already use Google AI
OpenRouter	Model choice	Route F9/F10 to whichever chat model you prefer

Start with Groq

Create a Groq key, paste it in, and dictate for a day before deciding whether you need a second provider for F9 answers.

OpenRouter has no speech-to-text

OpenRouter serves text models only. If it is selected for transcription, Flunkey auto-falls back to Groq, OpenAI, or Gemini — whichever has a key.

Open Flunkey Settings → Providers → paste the key into the matching field → Save. Flunkey validates the key with a minimal request and shows a connected indicator. Keys take effect immediately; no restart needed.

Per-task routing

Models & Providers lets you assign a different provider (and model) to each job: STT, F9 Chat, F10 Transform, and Polish. Each slot only offers providers with a valid key, autosaves on change, and warns if OpenRouter is picked for STT. A classic setup: Groq for STT + polish (fast, cheap), Claude via OpenRouter for F9 deep answers.

Default models

Provider	Chat	Transcribe	Polish
Groq	openai/gpt-oss-120b	whisper-large-v3-turbo	openai/gpt-oss-20b
OpenAI	gpt-4o-mini	gpt-4o-mini-transcribe	chat model
Gemini	gemini-2.5-flash	gemini-3.5-transcribe	skipped (already clean)
OpenRouter	anthropic/claude-3.5-sonnet	— (falls back)	picker model

OpenAI also offers whisper-1 and gpt-4o-transcribe; OpenAI/Gemini slots accept a custom model ID, and the OpenRouter picker searches 400+ text-only models (free-first, price/context badges, catalog cached 24h).

How keys are stored

Keys live in Windows Credential Manager under the Flunkey service as groq_api_key, openai_api_key, gemini_api_key, and openrouter_api_key — never in config files, never in chat history. If the vault is unavailable, Flunkey fails closed: voice actions refuse to run rather than risk leaking secrets.

Where things live

Keys       : Credential Manager → Flunkey service
History    : %LOCALAPPDATA%\com.flunkey.desktop
Config     : no secrets, safe to back up

Rotating & removing

Rotate at your provider dashboard, then paste the new key over the old one in Settings
To remove: clear the field in Settings and save — Flunkey deletes the vault entry
To nuke everything locally: Settings → Wipe all data (keys, history, preferences)

Installation & Setup