Ensuring API_KEY Security in Google Colab Notebooks

In the Cohere Google Colab notebook, you will notice that the API key is hardcoded.

# Setup the Cohere client
api_key = 'api_key' # Paste your API key here. Remember to not share it publicly
co = cohere.Client(api_key)

When I saved this on GitHub, I knew I was hardcoding the key. Saving the API key in plain sight within the Cohere Google Colab notebook poses a security risk, especially when saving the code on GitHub.

from getpass import getpass
token = getpass('Enter token here')
co = cohere.Client(token)

getpass module provides an ability to prompt the user for a value, usually a password, without echoing what they type to the console.

The above code helps you to type in the API key on runtime. The user-entered input is saved in var.

I hope you find this insightful.