Configuring Projects

🔒 Admin only. This page documents administrator features.

Projects are named identities for automated tools or apps that need their own API access, separate from personal user accounts.

When to Use Projects

Projects are useful when:

• You have an application or service that calls AI models on behalf of users
• You run automated scripts or pipelines that need stable, long-lived credentials
• You want to separate application usage from personal usage and budgets
• A team needs to share API access without giving out personal keys

Managing Projects

Projects live entirely in the database and are managed through the web interface — there is no projects: section in config.yaml. (Config version 3 removed the section; a config that still contains one is rejected at startup — see Admin Configuration.)

• Create a project at /projects (admin only). Creating requires an owner: search by name or email in the create dialog — the Create button stays disabled until one is picked. A new project has no coin pool of its own and falls back to the global defaults.tokens pool (see Admin Configuration) or a group pool if the project is a group member.
• Edit a project from its detail page (/projects/<id>) via the Edit button above the stats: the project owner or an admin can change the name and active flag; only admins can set the coin pool (Max Coins and Refill Rate). Clearing Max Coins removes the project's own pool so it falls back to the inherited group/default pool.
• Add members (managers and users) and create API keys from the detail page tabs.

Coin Pool

Setting Max Coins from the Edit dialog also sets the starting balance (what an admin coin reset refills to) to the same value. Lowering Max Coins clamps the project's current balance to the new cap.

Model Access and Groups

Projects get model access the same way users do: every public (unowned) model is available to every project. An owned model is available only to its owner, which is always a user, so a model that a project needs must stay public. Acknowledgement is a model-level property (needs_ack — see Configuring Models); project managers or the owner grant acknowledgement on a project's behalf through the UI.

Migration note: older Lumen versions synced per-project budgets, model access, and groups from a projects: section in config.yaml. Rows created by that sync remain in effect in the database; the config section itself is no longer read.