Get started with AI Gateway

The AI Gateway is built using Kong Gateway’s standard plugin model. The AI plugins are bundled with Kong Gateway as of version 3.6.x. This means you can deploy the AI Gateway capabilities by following the documented configuration instructions for each plugin.

To help you get started quickly, we have provided a script that automates the task of deploying a Kong Gateway configured as an AI Gateway to a Docker container, allowing you to evaluate the core AI provider capabilities before exploring the full suite of AI plugins.

The quickstart script supports deploying Kong Gateway on Kong Konnect or in traditional mode on Docker only.

Note: Running this script prompts you for AI Provider API Keys which are used to configure authentication with hosted AI providers. These keys are only passed to the Kong Gateway Docker container and are not otherwise transmitted outside the host machine.

  1. Run AI Gateway with the interactive ai quickstart script:

    1.  curl -Ls https://get.konghq.com/ai | bash

  2. Configure the deployment to target Kong Konnect or Docker only and configure your desired AI Provider API keys:

    1.  ...
    2.  Do you want to deploy on Kong Konnect (y/n) y
    3.  ...
    4.  Provide a key for each provider you want to enable and press Enter.
    5.  Not providing a key and pressing Enter will skip configuring that provider.
    7.  → Enter API Key for OpenAI    :
    8.  ...

  3. Once the AI Gateway is deployed, you will see information displayed to help you evaluate the AI proxy plugin behavior. For example, the script will output a sample command helping you route a chat request to OpenAI:

    1.  =======================================================
    2.   ⚒️                                 Routing LLM Requests
    3.  =======================================================
    5.  Your AI Gateway is ready. You can now route AI requests
    6.  to the configured AI providers. For example to route a
    7.  chat request to OpenAI you can use the following
    8.  curl command:
    10.  curl -s -X POST localhost:8000/openai/chat \
    11.   -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{
    12.     "messages": [{
    13.     "role": "user",
    14.     "content": "What is Kong Gateway?"
    15.   }] }'

  4. Finally, the script will display information about deployment files it generates, which can be used for future AI Gateway configurations.

    1.  =======================================================
    2.   ⚒️                What is next with the Kong AI Gateway
    3.  =======================================================
    5.  This script demonstrated the installation and usage
    6.  of only one of the many AI plugins that Kong Gateway
    7.  provides (the 'ai-proxy' plugin).
    9.  See the output directory to reference the files
    10.  used during the installation process and modify for
    11.  your production deployment.
    12.  ℹ /tmp/kong/ai-gateway

Note: By default, local models are configured on the endpoint http://host.docker.internal:11434, which allows Kong Gateway running in Docker to connect to the host machine.

More information

Previous Load Balancing