OpenAI

OpenAI gives the apps you build access to GPT models for chat and reasoning, embeddings for semantic search, Whisper for speech-to-text transcription, and image generation. Connect it once and the agent can wire any of these into a feature: a chat assistant, "search by meaning" over your data, a voice-note transcriber, or on-the-fly artwork.

What you get by connecting it

With your OpenAI key connected, the agent can build and wire up:

• GPT chat and reasoning - assistants, summarisers, classifiers, and structured-output features powered by GPT models.
• Embeddings - turn text into vectors for semantic search, "find similar" lists, and recommendations (a natural fit with Postgres/pgvector when Supabase is connected).
• Whisper transcription - convert recorded audio or voice notes into text.
• Image generation - create images from a text prompt inside your app.

The agent builds the feature and wires it to a server-side relay. Your key stays server-side and the AI never sees it.

Connecting it

You need an API key (it starts with sk-proj- or sk-). You can optionally add an organisation ID and a project ID if your account uses them to scope usage.

1. Sign in at the OpenAI platform and open the API keys section under your account.
2. Create a new secret key and copy it (OpenAI shows the full value only once).
3. Paste it into Dashboard then Connectors then OpenAI. Add the organisation and project IDs if you use them.

Connect once and every project in your account can use it. Connecting requires a paid plan. Saved secrets are shown as dots, never the value, and the page gives you a Test connection control to re-check the key against OpenAI and a Disconnect control to remove it.

Keys and security

An OpenAI key is a secret key: anyone holding it can spend your money, so it must never be bundled into an app people download. For this reason Appsanic uses the secret key plus relay tier. The generated app does not hold your key. Instead it calls OpenAI through a small server-side relay that holds the key in its own environment, and the agent writes the app to talk to that relay.

With Supabase connected, Appsanic can deploy that relay for you as a Supabase Edge Function, with your key kept server-side in the function's own environment. The agent generates the relay and wires the app to it.

Your managed connector secret is encrypted at rest with AES-256-GCM. The browser only ever sees that a secret exists; the AI never sees a decrypted key, and the agent will never ask you for a key in chat.

Useful links

• OpenAI documentation: https://platform.openai.com/docs
• Appsanic guide: AI Features in Your App
• How connectors work: Connectors Overview

Next

Read AI Features for how to add chat, search, transcription, and image generation to the apps you build.