BYOK routing
How a request sent to Merki reaches your provider on a BYOK route.
Quick path
- Register the provider key once.
- Send requests to Merki with the BYOK route model name.
- Merki forwards, returns the provider response, and bills nothing on its side.
Details
| Topic | Decision |
|---|---|
| Model names | The model field passes through to the provider verbatim. Use the provider's own model ID (for example gpt-4o, claude-sonnet-4-5). There is no Merki-side alias table. |
| Shapes | The request shape must be one the provider supports. An OpenAI-shaped request to a provider that only serves its native shape returns 400. See Endpoints. |
| Auth to Merki | Merki key as bearer. Provider keys are never sent by the client per request. See Authentication. |
| Auth to provider | Merki uses the registered provider key server-side. It is stored encrypted and never returned after registration. |
| Failures | Provider outages surface as 5xx upstream_error and are excluded from Merki's SLA. See Errors and the Service level agreement. |
| Revocation | The same automatic revocation applies to the Merki-side route. See API keys. |
| Data | The provider processes the request under your agreement with them. Merki-side retention is unchanged. See Zero data retention. |
Checklist
- [ ]
modelmatches the provider's ID exactly. - [ ] Request shape matches what that provider accepts.
- [ ] Provider-side billing and retention are tracked in the provider console.
Next step
Check the fee (zero) and enterprise terms: Pricing.