Grok Director
XAI_API_KEY
Specifies. Diagnoses. Compiles bibles. Does not spend, mint, or approve.
Director cognition unavailable. Specifications still stand. Compile from intent remains deterministic.
Capability admission
Credentials
Hollywood does not ask “which APIs exist.” The studio asks what the production requires, then which key admits which rail. Names of env vars are the map. Values never leave the host. Live spend stays dual-keyed and off.
What to plug in
- 1. Neon — memory. DATABASE_URL or POSTGRES_URL. Without it the host is not the ledger.
- 2. Grok — cognition, identity stills, and identity-family motion. Same key. Spoken audio off. Motion still needs a lease.
- 3. Runway and NVIDIA remain wired, not houses. A lease is a job, not a house key. One Runway key would open Gen-4.5, Act-Two, Aleph — the router still would not sit the chair. Cosmos Reason is a sensor.
- 4. Stripe, Mercury, Column — three pipes. You do not need all three. Coinbase is USDC and proofs, not copyright.
- 5. Blob for the working set. S3 or R2 for archive — pick the one you use.
- 6. Never a key — human approval, performance chairs, mix, Sentinel.
Cognition
Specify. Do not spend.
absentconduct
Picture
Stills live. Identity-family motion live on the same key. Runway and NVIDIA remain wired, not admitted.
Grok Imagine
XAI_API_KEY
Identity stills. Same key as Director. Cached per shot. Not a video crew.
Identity plates remain the canonical stills already in the vault.
Grok Imagine video
XAI_API_KEY
Same key as Director and stills. Admitted as architecture. Global slots 0. A lease is the job. Spoken audio off. Dual-key treasury stays off.
Identity plates remain. Motion waits on a lease of this door.
Runway house
RUNWAY_API_KEY · RUNWAYML_API_SECRET
One key, four doors: Gen-4.5, Act-Two, Aleph 2.0, Media Router. A lease is a job, not a house key. The router cannot hold a lease. Authorized slots remain 0.
Reservoir. PRESENT as architecture. A knock without a lease is not a job.
NVIDIA NIM
NVIDIA_API_KEY · NIM_API_KEY · NGC_API_KEY
One key, four reservoirs: WAN, Animate, Cosmos 3 Generator, Cosmos 3 Reasoner. A lease is a job. Reasoner is a sensor — it cannot approve. NVIDIA does not become the studio.
PRESENT as architecture. No key, no job. A lease without a credential still records the attempt.
Veo / Flow
GOOGLE_API_KEY · GEMINI_API_KEY · VERTEX_API_KEY
Hero-shot reservoir. GEMINI_API_KEY admits this rail. Weak as character memory.
Skip. Camera language can wait. Cosmos can cover environment when NIM is present.
Kling
KLING_API_KEY · KLING_ACCESS_KEY
Fabric, flight, physics. A key without credit cannot work. Credit is a provider fact. Weak on two-person dialogue.
Motion specialist absent. Cosmos motion_physics can stand in. Stillness remains valid.
Luma
LUMA_API_KEY
Specialist when the camera must speak a sentence (Ray keyframes). NVIDIA Cosmos covers ordinary camera-language and physics-aware I2V. Do not buy Luma to fill a checklist.
Correct if NIM/Cosmos is present. Pullbacks wait, or Cosmos takes the camera slot. Not a blocker.
Sound
Chairs, not logins.
Principal performance
no env
A voice is a chair, not a key. Synthesis may exist later. It is not authorized. The line is canon; the mouth is human until seated.
Would still be a recording of a performance, not the character.
Mix / master
no env
Stereo and Atmos are mix assets. North Hollow is a person. No API replaces a mix.
Delivery of a mix is still a human lock.
Memory
The disk is Neon. POSTGRES_URL is an alias.
Neon
DATABASE_URL · POSTGRES_URL · POSTGRES_URL_NON_POOLING
The disk. Writes are memory, not spend. Vercel/Neon often names this POSTGRES_URL or POSTGRES_URL_NON_POOLING. Any one admits the rail. Prefer DATABASE_URL; the others are aliases.
Preview organism only. Do not treat the host as the ledger.
Storage
Blob is the working set. S3 and R2 are archive reservoirs. Pick the one you use.
Working object store
BLOB_READ_WRITE_TOKEN · VERCEL_BLOB_READ_WRITE_TOKEN
The working set. Plates and takes. Not the archive. Not a copyright transfer.
Vault holds hashes, plates in-tree, and take records. Bytes of a master are not yet a commercial package.
Amazon S3 archive
AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID · AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY · S3_BUCKET · AWS_REGION
WHO talks to AWS, WHICH bucket, optional region. This is not R2. Use a narrowly scoped IAM user — never root. S3 holds files. The ledger remains the source of truth.
Correct if R2 or Blob is the archive you actually use. Do not add AWS as a checklist.
Cloudflare R2 archive
R2_ACCOUNT_ID · R2_ACCESS_KEY_ID · R2_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY · R2_BUCKET
S3-compatible, different cloud. R2_ACCOUNT_ID identifies the Cloudflare account. It is not AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID. Configure the archive you actually use — S3 or R2, not both as a ritual.
Correct if S3 or Blob is the archive you actually use.
Treasury
Stripe checkout. Mercury operating cash. Column ACH. Three pipes.
Stripe
STRIPE_SECRET_KEY · STRIPE_PUBLISHABLE_KEY · NEXT_PUBLIC_STRIPE_PUBLISHABLE_KEY
Secret moves money. Publishable is checkout UI. NEXT_PUBLIC_ is a Next.js name — MNEMOS reads it as an alias, not a Vite prefix. A pipe. Never the royalty engine.
Capability exists. Execution off. Ledger still records.
Mercury
MERCURY_API_TOKEN · MERCURY_TOKEN
Business bank. Operating balances, cards, the production account. Not ACH metal. Not Column. Not the filmmaker checkout.
Operating-bank pipe absent. Accrual still holds. Column can still be the ACH rail if seated.
Column
COLUMN_API_KEY · RAILS_API_KEY
Column N.A. is a chartered developer bank. ACH, Fedwire, account numbers. A live key looks like live_…; sandbox is test_…. RAILS_API_KEY is MNEMOS's generic alias for this pipe. You do not need Mercury AND Column unless you use both providers.
ACH/wire pipe absent. Mercury does not replace Column. Accrual still holds.
Settlement
USDC and proofs. Not ownership.
Coinbase / Base
CDP_API_KEY_ID · CDP_API_KEY_NAME · CDP_API_SECRET · COINBASE_API_KEY
CDP wants an id (or name) plus a secret. COINBASE_API_KEY is the legacy alias. Wallet is not invented. NFT ≠ copyright.
On-chain is a rail. Do not invent an address.
Authority
Dual-key spend. Human approval.
Live execution lock
MNEMOS_LIVE_EXECUTION · SSDF_PARENT_AUTH
Dual key. Either missing → execution stays off. A rail credential is not spend. Credit on Runway or NVIDIA is not this key.
Correct this cycle. Ledger-settled ≠ rail-settled.
Human director
no env
OWNER ≠ EXECUTOR. There is no API for sovereignty.
Always authorized to approve. Never replaceable by a key.
Capacity still refuses unauthorized motion. Narrowest bound.