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Ory Talos

Ory Talos is an API key management service. It handles the full lifecycle of API credentials: issuing keys, verifying them on the data plane, deriving short-lived tokens (JWT and macaroon), and revoking access. Verification is sub-millisecond on a warm cache and stays under 5 ms p99 against a local SQL backend on commodity hardware.

Talos separates admin operations (issue, rotate, revoke, derive) from data-plane operations (verify, self-revoke) so you can scale and secure each path independently.

Choose your path​

I want to integrate Talos into my application​

You're a developer building an application that needs API key authentication. Start here:

  • Quickstart — issue and verify your first API key in 5 minutes
  • Integration guide — full API walkthrough for issuing, verifying, importing keys, and deriving tokens
  • Error handling — error codes and retry strategies

I want to run Talos in production​

You're a platform engineer responsible for deploying and operating Talos. Start here:

  • Install — binary install or build from source
  • Configure — configuration file, environment variables, and hot-reload behavior
  • Deploy — Docker, Kubernetes, and split admin/data plane topologies
  • Monitor — Prometheus metrics, OpenTelemetry tracing, and health endpoints

Editions​

Ory Talos OSS (Apache 2.0) runs on a single node with a SQLite backend. It includes the full key lifecycle, token derivation, and CLI.

Ory Talos Commercial adds multi-tenancy, PostgreSQL/MySQL/CockroachDB backends, distributed caching (Redis, in-memory), edge proxy nodes, and the admin UI. Pages that cover commercial-only features are marked with a "Commercial" badge.

Learn more​

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