Get a Mistral AI key
Who this is for: anyone who wants to use Mistral models through SpiderGate on their own Mistral account.
What this does: walks you through creating a Mistral Studio API key, switching off training on your data, and adding the key to your SpiderGate vault.
Before you begin
A Mistral account. New accounts start on Free mode, which Mistral says needs no credit card.
About 3 minutes.
Permission to manage the vault for your brand in SpiderGate.
Limits and terms to know first
Mistral publishes no fixed numbers for Free mode. It says Free mode "has the lowest limits, intended for evaluation and prototyping", and shows your real limits on the Limits page of its Admin panel. Limits are set per model.
Warning: On Free mode, Mistral says it may use your input and output to train its models unless you opt out. Send no personal data until you have switched training off in Step 3.
Warning: Mistral's terms forbid you to "buy, sell, or transfer API keys or any type of Mistral AI account from, to, or with a third party". Keep the key to your own brand.
Mistral's docs disagree with each other on one point: one quickstart says Free mode needs no card, while the organisation quickstart lists a card as a prerequisite. If Mistral asks for billing details, that is Mistral's own sign-up flow, not SpiderGate.
Steps
Step 1 — Open Mistral Studio
Sign in at console.mistral.ai. If this is a new account, Mistral asks you to name your organisation first.
Step 2 — Create the key
In the left sidebar, open API Keys and click Create new key. Give it a name, set an expiration date, then click Create new key again.
Copy the key now. Mistral shows the full key only once, and you cannot change its expiry later.
Step 3 — Switch off training
In the Admin panel, open Privacy. Under Anonymous improvement data, turn the toggle off.
Step 4 — Add the key in SpiderGate
Open Gate → Vault (/dashboard/gate/vault) and click Add Provider. Type Mistral AI in Search providers... and pick it from the Free keys group.
Fill in the dialog:
API Key — paste the key you copied
Label — a name you will recognise later, for example the account it came from.
Under Routing, turn Share with SpiderIQ key pool off. It is on by default, and while it is on, other brands can draw on this key's free quota. Your provider's terms tie the key to your account (see the warnings above), so keep it to your brand.
Click Add key. The button reads Saving... while SpiderGate checks the key.
Verify it worked
When you click Add key, SpiderGate sends one request to Mistral with the key before it stores anything: it lists your models at https://api.mistral.ai/v1/models.
If Mistral accepts the key, the dialog closes and the key appears in your vault list.
If it does not, the dialog stays open and shows:
The mistral key did not pass its check: <reason>. Nothing was saved.The reason is SpiderGate's own wording, never Mistral's error text. The usual ones are Invalid API key (401 Unauthorized), Access denied (403 Forbidden) and The account behind this key has no credit left (402).
To see the key serve a request, give it a slot in one of your own routing aliases and send a request to that alias. The trace shows which provider answered.
Troubleshoot
The check fails with Invalid API key (401 Unauthorized). Mistral says a 401 means the key is "missing, invalid, or expired". Check you copied the whole key and that its expiry date has not passed.
Requests fail later with a 429. Mistral's 429 means you went over one of its three limits: requests per second, tokens per minute or tokens per month. See your numbers on the Limits page in Mistral's Admin panel.
Requests fail with a 402. Mistral says requests "beyond your included monthly usage fail with HTTP status 402" once your balance reaches zero.
Too many keys checked for this workspace; try again in …s. SpiderGate runs at most 20 key checks per brand in any 10 minutes. Wait the number of seconds it gives, then click Add key again.
Request timed out (15s) or Could not reach … to check the key. Try again later. The provider did not answer in time. Nothing was saved. Try again in a minute.
The provider is rate-limiting us (429). Try again in a minute. The provider throttled the check itself. Wait a minute and retry.