A practical guide on safeguarding API keys when using third-party AI tools, with a look at how Caveman and Bifrost approach security and where they fit into a developer’s stack. We live in a world of plugins, extensions, and gateways promising to make AI agents smarter, faster, and cheaper. That sounds good until you remember what these tools sometimes need access to. API keys. Local files. Project notes. CLI sessions. Model provider configs. Sometimes even MCP tools that can read or write inside a repo. That does not automatically mean a tool is bad. But it does mean you should slow down before pasting keys into anything you just found online. This post is not me accusing anyone of stealing keys. It is about the bigger problem: developers are being asked to try new AI tools constantly, and a lot of those tools sit close to secrets. So I wanted to look at this from a practical web developer point of view: What should I check before trusting an AI tool? What does a tool actually need access to?…