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Gatekyper
Self-host Gatekyper

Documentation

Operate Gatekyper with the model in view.

Install the stack, understand the boundary, point provider clients at the gateway, and give agents a safe way to request scoped access.

Canonical sourceGitHub mirror

Start here

Gatekyper stores real provider credentials behind an encrypted vault and gives applications and agents separate internal Gate Tokens. The gateway enforces policy while requests are in motion.

First

Getting started

Clone the canonical repository, generate local application secrets, start the complete Compose profile, and create the first protected request.

Core concepts

Learn how provider credentials, Gate Tokens, actors, policies, budgets, events, and access requests fit together.

Architecture

Understand the separate dashboard, management API, request gateway, worker, MCP server, Postgres, and Redis responsibilities.

Gateway

Use OpenAI-compatible and provider-native routes, pass a Gate Token, interpret response headers, and handle safe denials.

MCP for agents

Connect an authenticated agent, inspect its own access, request a temporary token, and collect an approved token exactly once.

Security model

Review public trust boundaries, cryptographic choices, metadata defaults, fail-closed behavior, and security disclosure.

Three interfaces, three credential types

Management

Dashboard and admin API

A signed browser session manages projects, providers, tokens, policies, approvals, and audit.

Runtime

Provider gateway

A Gate Token authenticates a provider request. It does not authenticate the management API.

Agents

MCP server

An MCP session maps to a known actor and permission level for read and access-request tools.

Implemented provider adapters

The current source includes tested adapters for OpenAI, Anthropic, OpenRouter, Cloudflare Workers AI, Replicate, and GitHub. Each adapter recognizes a bounded set of native routes and capabilities; unknown routes are denied rather than blindly forwarded.

OpenAI and OpenRouter can use the /v1/* compatibility surface. Anthropic, Cloudflare, Replicate, and GitHub use provider-prefixed native routes.

Operating principles

  • Agents and applications receive Gate Tokens, never raw provider credentials.
  • Policies are explicit and deny by default.
  • Gate Tokens stay stable while an upstream credential rotates.
  • Hard-stop budgets reserve conservatively before provider traffic and settle afterward.
  • Payload content is not stored by default; usage and policy metadata form the normal ledger.
  • Sensitive management actions and MCP invocations are auditable.