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No authentication is required when accessing Ollama’s API locally via http://localhost:11434. Authentication is required for the following:
  • Running cloud models via ollama.com
  • Publishing models
  • Downloading private models
Ollama supports two authentication methods:
  • Signing in: sign in from your local installation, and Ollama will automatically take care of authenticating requests to ollama.com when running commands
  • API keys: API keys for programmatic access to ollama.com’s API

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Signing in

To sign in to ollama.com from your local installation of Ollama, run: 
ollama signin
Once signed in, Ollama will automatically authenticate commands as required: 
ollama run gpt-oss:120b-cloud
Similarly, when accessing a local API endpoint that requires cloud access, Ollama will automatically authenticate the request: 
curl http://localhost:11434/api/generate -d '{
  "model": "gpt-oss:120b-cloud",
  "prompt": "Why is the sky blue?"
}'

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API keys

For direct access to ollama.com’s API served at https://ollama.com/api, authentication via API keys is required. First, create an API key, then set the OLLAMA_API_KEY environment variable: 
export OLLAMA_API_KEY=your_api_key
Then use the API key in the Authorization header: 
curl https://ollama.com/api/generate \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $OLLAMA_API_KEY" \
  -d '{
    "model": "gpt-oss:120b",
    "prompt": "Why is the sky blue?",
    "stream": false
  }'
API keys don’t currently expire, however you can revoke them at any time in your API keys settings.