---
title: Validate External Key
url: https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/api/http/organization/external_keys/validate
---

# Validate External Key

**POST** `/v1/organizations/external_keys/{external_key_id}/validate`

Validate an external key config against the customer's KMS.

Anthropic performs an encrypt/decrypt roundtrip against the configured
KMS key and waits up to 30 seconds for the result. The response status is
`success` if the roundtrip succeeded, or `failure` with an error
message if it failed or timed out.

## Path parameters

- `external_key_id: string`

  ID of the External Key.

  maxLength: 2048

## Headers

- `"anthropic-version": optional string`

  The version of the Claude API you want to use.

  Read more about versioning and our version history [here](https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/api/versioning?sdk_languages=http).

## Returns

- `type: "external_key_validation"`

  default: external_key_validation

- `error: string or null`

  Error message when status is `failure`. Null otherwise.

- `status: "failure" or "success"`

  `success` — encrypt/decrypt roundtrip succeeded. `failure` — the roundtrip failed or timed out; see `error`.

  - `"failure"`

  - `"success"`

## Example

```bash
curl https://api.anthropic.com/v1/organizations/external_keys/$EXTERNAL_KEY_ID/validate \
    -X POST \
    -H 'anthropic-version: 2023-06-01' \
    -H "X-Api-Key: $ANTHROPIC_API_KEY"
```

### Response (200)

```json
{
  "error": "error",
  "status": "failure",
  "type": "external_key_validation"
}
```