Keys
Two are required. Seven more are optional and each one turns something on. Every one of them is tested against the real service as you type, so you find out a key is wrong now rather than an hour into a run.
Watch instead: The StellarView Unboxing, from 02:48. 40 seconds.
Required
GITHUB_TOKEN | reads your repositories, opens branches and pull requests |
CLAUDE_API_KEY | the planning and the writing. You pay Anthropic directly |
Nothing works without both. StellarView will start, and let you look around, and tell you plainly on the first screen that they are missing.
The Claude key is a deliberate design choice, not an oversight. There is no reseller markup and no shared account: you hold the key, you see the spend, and you can revoke it.
Optional
JIRA_HOST JIRA_EMAIL JIRA_API_TOKEN JIRA_PROJECT_KEY | push epics and stories where your team already works |
CONFLUENCE_API_TOKEN CONFLUENCE_SPACE_KEY | publish documents as a company wiki |
OPENAI_API_KEY | an alternative model for code generation |
AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY | deploy, and run instances for a team |
FATHOM_API_KEY | read meeting recordings into the plan |
FIGMA_TOKEN | read designs |
AZURE_CLIENT_ID AZURE_CLIENT_SECRET AZURE_TENANT_ID | Microsoft identity |
None of them blocks you. Add one when you want the thing it opens up.
How to enter them
Either works, and they end up in the same place.
In the app. Open Settings, paste, and press test beside each. Saved keys take effect immediately. There is no restart.
In the file. Edit config/.env in the directory you ran docker compose up from:
GITHUB_TOKEN=ghp_...
CLAUDE_API_KEY=sk-ant-...What "tested" means
Five can be checked live before you rely on them: GitHub, Claude, JIRA, OpenAI, Figma.
The JIRA test is worth describing, because it is stricter than it looks. Some Atlassian endpoints answer an unauthenticated request with an empty success rather than a 401, so a naive check reports a working connection for a token that is not being applied at all. StellarView requires the response to identify your account, and if a project key is supplied it must be readable. Signing in successfully but failing to read the project is reported as a failure, not glossed over.
Worth knowing
Keys live in a file you own. config/.env, on your disk, in the directory you started from. They are not sent anywhere except to the service they belong to.
Atlassian wants a classic API token and your account email, not a username and not a scoped token. That is the most common reason a JIRA test fails.
Per-galaxy keys override the global ones. A repository belonging to a different organisation can carry its own token, in that galaxy's own .env, so you are not switching credentials by hand.
Next: Load a repository.