Authentication

Authenticate requests to the Portkey AI Gateway

Overview

The Portkey AI Gateway uses provider-specific headers for authentication. You provide your API keys for the AI providers you want to use via HTTP headers.

Provider Headers

Authentication is handled through HTTP headers that specify the provider and API key:

Basic Authentication

x-portkey-provider · string · required

The AI provider to use (e.g., openai, anthropic, azure-openai, google)

x-portkey-api-key · string · required

Your API key for the specified provider

Example: OpenAI

curl http://localhost:8787/v1/chat/completions \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "x-portkey-provider: openai" \
  -H "x-portkey-api-key: sk-..." \
  -d '{
    "model": "gpt-4o-mini",
    "messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "Hello!"}]
  }'

Example: Anthropic

curl http://localhost:8787/v1/chat/completions \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "x-portkey-provider: anthropic" \
  -H "x-portkey-api-key: sk-ant-..." \
  -d '{
    "model": "claude-3-5-sonnet-20241022",
    "messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "Hello!"}],
    "max_tokens": 1024
  }'

Azure OpenAI Headers

Azure OpenAI requires additional headers:

x-portkey-provider · string · required

Set to azure-openai

x-portkey-api-key · string · required

Your Azure OpenAI API key

x-portkey-azure-resource-name · string · required

Your Azure resource name

x-portkey-azure-deployment-id · string · required

Your Azure deployment ID

x-portkey-azure-api-version · string

API version (defaults to latest)

curl http://localhost:8787/v1/chat/completions \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "x-portkey-provider: azure-openai" \
  -H "x-portkey-api-key: your-azure-key" \
  -H "x-portkey-azure-resource-name: your-resource" \
  -H "x-portkey-azure-deployment-id: your-deployment" \
  -d '{
    "model": "gpt-4",
    "messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "Hello!"}]
  }'

Config-Based Authentication

You can also pass authentication via the config header:

x-portkey-config · string

JSON string containing provider and authentication details

curl http://localhost:8787/v1/chat/completions \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H 'x-portkey-config: {"provider":"openai","api_key":"sk-..."}' \
  -d '{
    "model": "gpt-4o-mini",
    "messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "Hello!"}]
  }'

Virtual Keys

Virtual keys are available in the hosted and enterprise versions of Portkey.

Instead of passing provider API keys directly, you can use virtual keys:

curl http://localhost:8787/v1/chat/completions \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "x-portkey-virtual-key: pk-..." \
  -d '{
    "model": "gpt-4o-mini",
    "messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "Hello!"}]
  }'

Supported Providers

The gateway supports authentication for 45+ providers including:

• openai - OpenAI
• anthropic - Anthropic
• azure-openai - Azure OpenAI
• google - Google Gemini
• bedrock - AWS Bedrock
• cohere - Cohere
• mistral - Mistral AI
• together-ai - Together AI
• anyscale - Anyscale
• perplexity - Perplexity
• groq - Groq
• ollama - Ollama

See the Providers documentation for the complete list.