SideNote ProA Windows AI assistant that uses your own API key
SideNote Pro does not sell you AI capacity. You point it at an AI provider you already have an account with, supply your own key, and choose the model. The licence covers the Windows application; what you spend on inference is between you and your provider.
What bring your own key actually means
Most desktop AI tools resell inference. You pay a monthly fee, the vendor runs a server that holds their API key, and your prompts travel through that server on the way to a model the vendor picked.
Bring your own key, usually shortened to BYOK, inverts that. The application holds no AI credentials of its own. You supply an API key issued to you by a provider you chose, and the application talks to that provider directly from your machine. There is no vendor-operated relay in the middle.
SideNote Pro is built this way from the ground up. It ships with no AI account, no bundled credits, and no proxy endpoint. Until you configure a provider profile in Settings, it cannot send anything anywhere.
How the connection works
SideNote Pro speaks the OpenAI-compatible HTTP API. A provider profile is a small set of fields, and the application does the rest.
| Field | What it is | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Display name | A label so you can tell profiles apart in the composer picker | OpenAI |
| Base URL | The root of the OpenAI-compatible API | https://api.openai.com/v1 |
| Model | The model ID sent with each request | gpt-5-mini |
| API key | Optional. Sent as a bearer token when present | Your provider's secret key |
| Reasoning effort | Optional override, off by default | Provider default |
Two endpoints are used. GET {BaseUrl}/models backs the connection test and optional model discovery. POST {BaseUrl}/chat/completions streams the actual response back as Server-Sent Events. That is the whole contract, which is why any service implementing it can be used, not only the presets.
SideNote Pro currently uses the streaming Chat Completions API, not the newer OpenAI Responses API. If you are following a tutorial written for Responses, the request shape will not match what SideNote Pro sends. See the OpenAI-compatible provider guide for the details that matter in practice.
What this changes for you
You pick the model
Not the model a vendor negotiated the best rate on. Use a small fast model for rewriting a paragraph and a heavier one for a hard debugging session, in the same application.
You see real usage
Your provider dashboard shows exactly what you spent, itemised by their billing, not summarised by an intermediary.
You can move
Switching providers is editing a Base URL. Nothing about your local history or settings is tied to one vendor.
You can go local
Point a profile at Ollama or LM Studio running on your own machine and inference never leaves it. See local models.
The honest tradeoffs
BYOK is not automatically cheaper and it is not automatically more private. Both depend entirely on choices you make after setup.
- Cost is usage-based. If you send long conversations to an expensive model all day, metered API billing can exceed a flat subscription. If your usage is light or bursty, it is usually the other way round. Reduce your AI API costs covers the levers.
- Privacy depends on the provider. Removing the vendor proxy removes one party from the path. Your chosen provider still receives every request and applies its own retention and training policies. Read them.
- Setup is a real step. You need an account with a provider and a key before the first message. The getting started guide walks through it once.
- Compatibility varies. An endpoint advertising OpenAI compatibility may not support every optional field, streaming detail, or image input.
Where your key is kept
API keys are never written into settings.json. Each provider profile has a stable ID that maps it to a separate credential file under %LOCALAPPDATA%\SideNote Pro\provider-credentials\, protected with Windows DPAPI and bound to your Windows user account.
BediniLabs never receives your provider key. The licensing service handles activation and entitlement only, and your AI requests never pass through it. How SideNote Pro handles your data describes the full split.