Installation Guide

This guide will help you install elsai LLM Gateway and check that it works.

Prerequisites

Python 3.10 or higher
pip package manager
Credentials for at least one model provider (Azure OpenAI, AWS Bedrock, OpenAI, ...)

bash

pip install --extra-index-url https://core-packages.elsai.ai/root/elsai-llm-gateway/ elsai-llm-gateway

python

import elsai_llm_gateway

print(elsai_llm_gateway.__version__)

The server needs two secrets. It refuses to start without them.

Variable	Purpose
`LITELLM_MASTER_KEY`	Master key of the underlying LiteLLM proxy.
`GATEWAY_ADMIN_KEY`	Key that protects the `/admin/v1` API.

bash

export LITELLM_MASTER_KEY="sk-<choose-a-long-random-value>"
export GATEWAY_ADMIN_KEY="<choose-a-long-random-value>"

The in-process Python SDK does not need a database or a running server.

Service	When you need it
PostgreSQL (`DATABASE_URL`)	Virtual keys, teams, organisations and database-backed policy overrides on the server.
Redis	Spend counters and cache shared between several gateway instances.
AWS Secrets Manager	Loading provider keys and other secrets at start-up. See Environment Variables.