AI Sponsorships

Share your Anthropic credential with friends so they can identify species with Claude — at no cost to them, with full control of your quota.

How does it work?

Go to Profile → AI Sponsoring and add an Anthropic credential (API key sk-ant-api03-… or long-lived token sk-ant-oat01-…).
The credential is stored encrypted in Supabase Vault. Only the Rastrum Edge Function can decrypt it at call time. Never appears in logs or in the browser.
Add your friends by username, set a monthly cap (default 200 calls/month, max 10000), and pick a priority if you have multiple credentials.
When a friend identifies a photo, Rastrum uses your credential automatically. You earn social karma for sharing.

Usage rules

BYO always wins: If a user configures their own API key, that's used first. Sponsorship only applies when there's no BYO.
Hard monthly cap: When a beneficiary reaches 80%, you get notified. At 100%, their Claude access cuts off until the 1st of next month.
Auto-pause on abuse: If a beneficiary makes more than 30 calls in 10 minutes, their sponsorship auto-pauses and you get an email to review.
Karma capped: +20 karma on sponsorship activation. +1 karma per call used, up to the monthly cap. No karma for self-sponsorships or if the beneficiary has less than 10 own karma (anti-Sybil).

Costs

Identifications count against your Anthropic quota, not against Rastrum. A Claude Haiku 4.5 ID costs approximately $0.001–$0.01 USD per photo. If you use a long-lived token (OAT) against your Pro/Max subscription, calls are effectively free within your plan.

Privacy

Your beneficiary list is public by default on your profile (you can hide per sponsorship).
Who sponsors you is private by default on your profile (you can make it public per sponsorship).
For the relationship to be publicly visible, both parties have to opt-in.

How to get sponsored

Today, the sponsor adds you by username. Ask someone already on Rastrum (a friend, an expert you follow, someone from your community) to sponsor you. There's no public marketplace of sponsors — it's intentionally out-of-band to keep the network trust-based.

FAQ

Can sponsors see my photos?

Not directly. Sponsors see how many calls you made and when, but not the images or the identifications. If your observation is public (default), anyone can see it — but that's not sponsorship-specific.

What happens if my sponsor revokes the sponsorship?

Future identifications stop using their credential. PlantNet (free) and Phi-3.5 on-device keep working. Configure your own API key for continued Claude access.

Can I sponsor myself?

Yes, that's useful for using the same UI for your own usage. It doesn't generate karma (would be farming), but everything else works normally.

Technical spec: docs/specs/modules/27-ai-sponsorships.md