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API keys are first-class test or production credentials. The prefix is the mode. Do not invent a third prefix. Create either kind from the signed-in dashboard. The secret is shown once. The public keyPrefix is the first 20 characters of that secret.

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What test mode is for

Use a test key to wire resolve, store reads, named intel jobs, and artifacts against fixture or gated data without spending the wallet. A 200 in test mode is not a production transaction. Test-mode traffic is on the published non-billable list: health, quote, limits, catalog, test-key traffic, and 4xx that fail before work starts are free. See What is not billed.

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What production mode bills

A live key bills the SKU for the work that completed:
  • Store reads bill their family (resolve stays $0.01; GET /v1/factors/decomposition is a market-data store read).
  • POST /v1/intelligence/query bills intel_pack ($0.50) or intel_report ($1.50) once on successful completion of a named job. Enqueue (202), in-flight polls, failures, and cache hits are not billed. Internal store hops the packer makes are not billed.
  • Artifact create bills on successful completion.
Send Idempotency-Key on those billable POSTs. The first response is replayed for 24 hours. Reusing the key with a different body is 422. An in-flight first call is 409 plus Retry-After.
A test key still authenticates and still sees livemode: false on data objects. It is not a production key with the meter turned off after the fact — it did not enter the billable rail.