Agents > Inference & providers

Custom inference endpoint

Connect Derp's agents to any OpenAI-compatible inference endpoint — OpenRouter, LiteLLM, z.ai, or an internal gateway exposed at a public URL.

Derp supports custom inference endpoints for users who want to power Derp's agents with any OpenAI-compatible inference endpoint — a model router, hosted gateway, or internal infrastructure they already run.

This lets you route AI requests through your preferred provider, run inference behind your own gateway, or use a router like OpenRouter or LiteLLM, while keeping the agent experience inside Derp.

Your endpoint must be reachable at a public URL. Requests route through Derp's servers (see How it works), so Derp must be able to reach your endpoint over the public internet. localhost, private or internal network addresses, and internal-only services — such as a LiteLLM proxy that's only reachable inside your network — are rejected. To use an internal or local endpoint, first expose it at a public HTTPS URL. See Network requirements for details.

Key features

OpenAI-compatible - Works with any endpoint that implements the OpenAI Chat Completions API.
Provider flexibility - Use a model router (OpenRouter, LiteLLM), a model provider with an OpenAI-compatible surface (z.ai), or your own internal gateway exposed at a public URL.
No AI credits consumed for inference - Inference is billed directly by your endpoint provider. On Business and Enterprise, local agent runs that route through a custom inference endpoint still consume platform credits for Derp's platform infrastructure.
Local API key storage - Your endpoint API key is stored only on your device (in your OS keychain or equivalent secure storage), never on Derp's servers. It's used to make requests to your configured endpoint.

How it works

A custom inference endpoint expects your endpoint to implement the OpenAI Chat Completions API (POST /v1/chat/completions). Any service that exposes a compatible surface can be used as a target:

OpenRouter - Aggregates many model providers behind a single OpenAI-compatible API and consolidated billing.
LiteLLM - A self-hosted proxy that exposes a unified, OpenAI-compatible API across providers.
z.ai - A model provider with an OpenAI-compatible API surface for its models.
Internal gateways (exposed at a public URL) - An in-house service that fronts model providers behind an OpenAI-compatible endpoint (for example, a corporate AI gateway with logging, redaction, or access control). The gateway must be reachable from the public internet — an internal-only service, such as a LiteLLM proxy that only resolves inside your network or VPN, won't work until it's exposed at a public URL (see Network requirements).

When you configure a custom inference endpoint, your endpoint URL, model identifiers, and API key are stored only on your device, never on Derp's servers. Your API key is used to make requests to your configured endpoint.

When you send a prompt using an endpoint-routed model:

Your local Derp client pulls your endpoint URL and API key from your device's secure storage and sends them up to Derp's backend along with your prompt.
Derp's agent harness, which runs on Derp's backend, assembles the full request (system instructions, conversation context, tools) and uses your key in-flight to call your configured endpoint.
Your endpoint's response streams back through Derp's backend to your client.

Your API key passes through Derp's servers each time you send a request, but Derp never stores it there — it's used only in-flight to call your endpoint, then discarded.

When a model routed through your endpoint is selected:

Derp doesn't consume your AI credits for that request.
Costs are billed directly by your endpoint provider.
Derp doesn't retain or store your API key on any of its servers.

Enabling a custom inference endpoint

To enable and configure a custom inference endpoint:

In Derp, open Settings and search for inference endpoint to jump to the configuration.
Add your endpoint URL (the base URL that exposes /v1/chat/completions) and any required credentials (typically an API key).
Specify the model identifier(s) you want to route through this endpoint.
Save the configuration. Once added, you'll see your custom models appear in the model picker.

When you explicitly select an endpoint-routed model from the model picker, Derp routes the request through your endpoint instead of consuming Derp's AI credits.

The configuration flow mirrors the Bring Your Own API Key setup, so the steps will feel familiar if you've already configured BYOK.

Network requirements

Derp routes inference requests through its servers, so your endpoint must be reachable from the public internet. localhost, 127.0.0.1, and other private or local network URLs are rejected when configuring a custom inference endpoint.

This requirement applies to any endpoint that isn't already publicly accessible:

Internal gateways and proxies - An internal LiteLLM proxy, corporate AI gateway, or other service that only resolves inside your private network or VPN can't be reached by Derp. Expose it at a public HTTPS URL — for example, through a load balancer, an API gateway, or a tunneling service — before configuring it in Derp.
Local models - To route through a model running on your own machine (for example, Ollama, LM Studio, vLLM, or llama.cpp), expose it through a tunneling service like ngrok and use the public tunnel URL as the base URL in your endpoint configuration.

For example, with a default Ollama install listening on port 11434, run ngrok http 11434 and use the resulting https://*.ngrok-free.app/v1 URL as your endpoint. Other tunneling services that produce a publicly reachable HTTPS URL (Cloudflare Tunnel, Tailscale Funnel, and similar) work the same way.

Billing behavior

Derp AI credits

When you select an endpoint-routed model from the model picker, inference is billed directly by your endpoint provider, according to their pricing, rather than drawing from your Derp AI credits.

Auto routing still uses Derp credits

Derp's Auto models dynamically route across providers using Derp's infrastructure. Because Auto routing depends on Derp, Auto always consumes Derp's credits, even if you've configured a custom inference endpoint.

To use your endpoint, select the specific endpoint-routed model from the model picker rather than an Auto option.

Other AI features in Derp

Some AI-powered features (Codebase Context, Active AI recommendations, cloud agent runs) rely on Derp's infrastructure and are unaffected by a custom inference endpoint. See the feature breakdown on the BYOK page for which features still consume Derp credits.

Zero Data Retention (ZDR)

Derp is SOC 2 compliant and has Zero Data Retention (ZDR) agreements with all of its contracted LLM providers.

Custom inference endpoint prompts and responses transit Derp's backend (see How it works). Derp does not use this content for training; retention and analytics handling follow the same account-level privacy and telemetry settings that apply to Derp-billed traffic.

When you use a custom inference endpoint:

Data retention on the provider side is determined by your endpoint provider and any upstream model providers they route to.
Derp cannot enforce ZDR for requests sent through a custom inference endpoint.
If your endpoint provider does not have ZDR with the underlying model provider, your requests may be retained according to their terms.

Derp itself never stores your endpoint API key. Review your endpoint provider's data handling and retention policies before routing sensitive prompts through a custom inference endpoint.

Centrally managed configuration

The custom inference endpoints described on this page are configured at the user level on every plan. Each user adds their own endpoint locally, and it works only for interactive requests, not cloud agents.

Enterprise teams can also configure team-managed custom endpoints centrally: an admin sets shared endpoints in the Admin Panel, and they work for both interactive requests and cloud agents. See Team-managed API keys and endpoints, or Bring Your Own LLM for AWS Bedrock routing.

How custom inference endpoints differ from BYOK and BYOLLM

Derp offers three ways to bring your own AI infrastructure. Use this table to pick the right one, and follow the links for full details.

Name	Meaning	Plans
Bring Your Own API Key (BYOK)	Use your own API key for OpenAI, Anthropic, or Google models. Keys are stored locally on your device.	Free and all eligible paid plans
Custom inference endpoint	Connect Derp to an OpenAI-compatible endpoint such as OpenRouter, LiteLLM, z.ai, or an internal gateway.	Free and all eligible paid plans
Bring Your Own LLM (BYOLLM)	Enterprise-managed inference through your cloud provider (AWS Bedrock today; Azure Foundry and Google Vertex coming soon), with Derp handling routing, orchestration, governance, and observability.	Enterprise only

Platform credits may apply for local agent runs on Business and Enterprise when using BYOK, a custom inference endpoint, or BYOLLM. See platform credits.

Bring Your Own API Key — Use your own OpenAI, Anthropic, or Google API keys.
Bring Your Own LLM — Enterprise-managed inference through your cloud provider or approved infrastructure.
Model Choice — Full list of supported models and model_id values.
Credits — How Derp credits work and when they're consumed.