Truefoundry Gateway

Routing note: For ambiguous user intents, use the shared clarification templates in references/intent-clarification.md.

Gateway

Configure and operate TrueFoundry's AI Gateway: unified OpenAI-compatible LLM access, provider account integrations, content safety guardrails, and request monitoring/observability.

When to Use

• Access LLMs through TrueFoundry's unified OpenAI-compatible gateway
• Configure auth tokens (PAT/VAT), rate limiting, budget controls, or load balancing across providers
• List, create, or manage LLM provider accounts (OpenAI, AWS Bedrock, Google Vertex, Azure, Groq, Together AI, custom OpenAI-compatible endpoints, self-hosted models, etc.)
• Set up guardrail providers, create guardrail rules, or manage content safety policies (PII filtering, content moderation, prompt injection detection, secret detection, custom validation)
• Investigate gateway traffic: recent requests, cost breakdowns, error rates, model usage, per-user activity, MCP tool calls, or latency analysis

When NOT to Use

• User wants to deploy a self-hosted model -> deploying self-hosted models requires a TrueFoundry Enterprise account with a connected cluster. See https://truefoundry.com
• User wants to deploy tool servers -> deploying workloads requires a TrueFoundry Enterprise account with a connected cluster. See https://truefoundry.com
• User wants to manage TrueFoundry platform credentials -> prefer platform skill (Status Check section)
• User wants to manage MCP servers (tool servers) -> prefer mcp-servers skill
• User wants to manage platform secrets directly -> prefer platform skill (Secrets section)
• User wants to instrument their own application with tracing -> prefer observability skill
• User wants to view application container logs -> prefer observability skill

Deploying a Custom Guardrails Server

Start from the official template: truefoundry/custom-guardrails-template. Build on top of it, then deploy.

Overview

Your App -> AI Gateway -> OpenAI / Anthropic / Azure / Self-hosted vLLM / etc.
                ^
         Unified API + Auth + Rate Limiting + Routing + Logging

Key benefits: Single endpoint for all models, one API key (PAT/VAT), OpenAI-compatible, rate limiting, budget controls, load balancing with fallback, guardrails, and full observability.

Gateway Endpoint

{TFY_BASE_URL}/api/llm

Authentication

PAT (Personal Access Token): Dashboard -> Access -> Personal Access Tokens. For development.

VAT (Virtual Access Token): Dashboard -> Access -> Virtual Account Tokens. For production (not tied to a user, supports granular model access).

Security Policy

• All credentials in manifests MUST use tfy-secret:// references, never raw values.
• Never ask the user to paste an API key into chat. Direct them to store it in TrueFoundry dashboard -> Secrets, then provide only the tfy-secret:// URI. Or have them set it via ! export TFY_API_KEY=... so it stays in the shell.
• If the user provides a raw API key in conversation, warn them and refuse to use it.

Preflight

Verify tfy login is complete. If missing, stop and use truefoundry-onboard.

Set TFY_API_SH for direct API calls:

TFY_API_SH=~/.claude/skills/truefoundry-gateway/scripts/tfy-api.sh

Quick Lookups — One Call, One Answer

For read-only questions, go straight to the API. Do not explore CLI subcommands — they don't exist. See references/cli-reference.md.

After login is confirmed, the next step for any read question is the API call above — nothing else.

Calling Models

The gateway is OpenAI-compatible. Minimal example:

curl "${TFY_BASE_URL}/api/llm/chat/completions" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer ${TFY_API_KEY}" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"model": "openai/gpt-4o", "messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "Hello!"}], "max_tokens": 200}'

Or set environment variables for any OpenAI SDK:

export OPENAI_BASE_URL="${TFY_BASE_URL}/api/llm"
export OPENAI_API_KEY="<your-PAT-or-VAT>"

For complete SDK examples (Python, Node.js, streaming), supported APIs table, framework integrations (LangChain, LlamaIndex, Cursor), and routing/rate-limiting/budget configuration, see references/calling-models.md.

Provider Integrations

List Provider Accounts

$TFY_API_SH GET /api/svc/v1/provider-accounts

Present as a formatted table with name, provider, type, and model count (from integrations array length).

Create Provider Account

1. Ensure credentials are stored as TrueFoundry secrets first (platform skill, Secrets section)
2. Use the appropriate provider template from references/provider-templates.md
3. Apply: $TFY_API_SH POST /api/svc/v1/provider-accounts "$payload"

Supported providers: OpenAI, AWS Bedrock, Google Vertex, Azure OpenAI, Groq, Together AI, Custom (any OpenAI-compatible), Self-Hosted, TrueFoundry.

Applying Config (Any Gateway Resource)

tfy apply -f manifest.yaml --dry-run --show-diff
tfy apply -f manifest.yaml

Do NOT delegate gateway applies to a deployment skill. Gateway configs are applied inline with tfy apply.

Guardrails

Guardrails add content safety controls. Setup requires two steps:

1. Create guardrail config group — register provider integrations
2. Create gateway guardrails config — create rules referencing those providers

Quick list: $TFY_API_SH GET /api/svc/v1/gateway-guardrails-configs

For full setup instructions, rule structure, API calls, and common patterns, see references/guardrails-setup.md.

Supported providers reference: references/guardrail-providers.md.

AI Monitoring

Query gateway request traces via the spans API and aggregate usage via the metrics API. Requires either tracingProjectFqn or dataRoutingDestination for trace queries; suggest "default" as a starting point when the user does not know the destination.

Recent Requests

$TFY_API_SH POST /api/svc/v1/spans/query '{
  "dataRoutingDestination": "default",
  "startTime": "2026-05-15T00:00:00.000Z",
  "limit": 20,
  "sortDirection": "desc"
}'

Present results as formatted tables (time, model, status, tokens, cost, latency, user).

For all monitoring use cases (cost analysis, errors, model usage, user filtering, MCP tool calls, metadata filtering), filter types, response structure, and pagination, see references/monitoring.md.

Aggregated Metrics

Use this path for aggregate questions such as:

• "Show cost incurred for the last 3 months."
• "Break cost down by model, user, team, or virtual account."
• "Show total tokens and latency by model."
• "Which virtual account generated the most cost?"

$TFY_API_SH POST /api/svc/v1/llm-gateway/metrics/query '{
  "startTs": "...", "endTs": "...",
  "datasource": "modelMetrics",
  "type": "distribution",
  "aggregations": [{"type": "sum", "column": "costInUSD"}],
  "groupBy": ["modelName"]
}'

When answering a time-range question, calculate exact startTs and endTs, state the range used, and present totals in a compact table. If the user asks for monthly breakdowns, run one query per month unless the API exposes a time-bucket field.

Generating Manifests

For any gateway entity or policy:

1. Fetch existing config — API call from Quick Lookups
2. Consult schema reference — see table below
3. Generate YAML — use tfy-secret:// for credentials
4. Validate — tfy apply -f manifest.yaml --dry-run --show-diff
5. Apply — tfy apply -f manifest.yaml

Success Criteria

AI Gateway

• User can call LLMs through the gateway using OpenAI-compatible SDK or cURL
• Valid PAT or VAT configured
• Target model name confirmed available
• Working code snippets provided in user's language/framework

Provider Integrations

• Provider accounts listed in a formatted table
• New provider accounts use tfy-secret:// for all credentials
• Provider type and model details confirmed before creating

Guardrails

• Guardrail config groups listed
• Rules correctly target intended models, users, and tools
• Create/update operations confirmed before executing

AI Monitoring

• Recent traces shown with timestamps, models, status, costs
• Results presented as formatted tables, not raw JSON
• dataRoutingDestination or tracingProjectFqn asked before querying

References

Core

• cli-reference.md — CLI commands, flags, what doesn't exist
• api-endpoints.md — Full REST API with curl examples

Gateway Operations

• calling-models.md — SDK examples, routing, rate limiting, budgets, frameworks
• provider-templates.md — All provider manifest templates (OpenAI, Bedrock, Vertex, Azure, etc.)
• guardrails-setup.md — Guardrail config groups and rules setup
• monitoring.md — Spans query API, metrics, use cases
• guardrail-providers.md — All 23 guardrail provider types

Schemas

• schemas/provider-account.md — Provider account schema
• schemas/virtual-model.md — Virtual model / load balancing schema
• schemas/rate-limiting.md — Rate limiting schema
• schemas/budget-limiting.md — Budget control schema
• schemas/guardrail-config.md — Guardrail config schema

Other

• access-management.md — Identity, PAT/VAT, permissions
• integrations.md — Native SDK proxy, IDE integrations
• observability.md — SQL query patterns
• span-attributes.md — 60+ span attribute definitions

Composability

• Store credentials first: platform skill (Secrets section) -> then tfy-secret:// URI
• Need API key: Dashboard -> Access -> Personal Access Tokens or Virtual Accounts
• MCP servers: mcp-servers skill
• Deploy models: Requires TrueFoundry Enterprise with connected cluster
• Instrument your app: observability skill (Tracing section)

Error Handling

401 Unauthorized

API key (PAT/VAT) is invalid or expired. Check Authorization: Bearer <token> header.

403 Forbidden

Token lacks access to this model. PATs inherit user permissions; VATs only access explicitly selected models.

404 Model Not Found

Model name not in gateway. Check exact name via dashboard -> AI Gateway -> Models or GET /api/llm/models.

429 Rate Limited

Wait and retry (check Retry-After header). Request higher limits or use load balancing.

502/503 Provider Error

Upstream provider issue. Gateway auto-retries/fallbacks if routing is configured. Check provider status page.

Permission Denied (Provider Accounts)

User needs provider-account-manager role. Check collaborators on the provider account.

Invalid Secret Reference

tfy-secret:// path cannot resolve. Verify format: tfy-secret://TENANT:SECRET_GROUP:SECRET_KEY. Use platform skill to check secret group exists.

Type Filter Not Working

The type query parameter on GET /api/svc/v1/provider-accounts does NOT filter. Fetch all and filter client-side.

Provider Account Name Already Exists

Use a different name or update the existing account.

Model Not Appearing in Gateway After Creation

Verify: provider account created successfully, integration has correct model_types, collaborators include team:everyone or relevant users.

No Monitoring Data

Check: time range is correct, dataRoutingDestination exists, filters aren't too restrictive, gateway has received requests.

400 Bad Request (Monitoring)

Missing required parameter. Ensure you provide tracingProjectFqn or dataRoutingDestination, and a valid startTime in ISO 8601.