* feat(guardrails): add Alice by ActiveFence guardrail
Adds `guardrail: alice` — policy-based guardrails for prompts and model
responses, evaluated against ActiveFence's Alice.
What makes this different from the other providers: Alice evaluates against
policies configured per *application*, and a proxy typically fronts several of
them, so the application cannot be a static config value. It is named on the
LiteLLM virtual key instead:
curl $PROXY/key/generate -H "Authorization: Bearer $LITELLM_MASTER_KEY" \
-d '{"key_alias": "payments-bot",
"metadata": {"alice_app_id": "payments-bot"}}'
read via `CustomGuardrail._get_admin_metadata`, with `key_alias` as the
fallback. That helper is what makes it trustworthy: it reads whichever metadata
holder the proxy wrote the authenticated key's values into — which differs by
route — and the proxy strips caller-supplied `user_api_key_*` from both, so a
caller cannot point its own traffic at an application with laxer policies than
the one its key was issued for. A request whose key names no application is
refused rather than evaluated against a guess.
Implements `apply_guardrail` only, so pre_call, during_call, post_call and
streaming all come from UnifiedLLMGuardrails. Blocks with
GuardrailRaisedException; masks by substituting Alice's redacted text; a MASK
carrying no replacement blocks rather than passing the original through. A
verdict reporting `errors[]` is treated as a failure, not a pass — otherwise a
half-evaluated message would be allowed. `unreachable_fallback` (already on
LitellmParams) chooses fail-closed or fail-open on transport failure.
Config:
guardrails:
- guardrail_name: alice
litellm_params:
guardrail: alice
mode: [pre_call, post_call]
api_key: os.environ/ALICE_API_KEY
21 tests in tests/test_litellm/proxy/guardrails/guardrail_hooks/test_alice.py
cover registration, credential resolution, the app-id ladder including the
forged-metadata case, every verdict, and both unreachable policies.
No new LitellmParams field, so no schema.d.ts regeneration is needed.
* refactor(guardrails): post to Alice's LiteLLM endpoint and forward verbatim
Switches from `/v2/evaluate/message` — Alice's single-text endpoint — to
`/v2/evaluate/litellm`, which takes the hook's arguments as they arrive and
answers with a verdict.
That inverts where the work happens, and shrinks this plugin accordingly. It
now selects nothing and renames nothing: it posts `{input_type, inputs,
request_data}` and enforces `{verdict, categories, correlation_id, message,
replacements}`. Which parts of a conversation are worth evaluating, and how a
verdict is reached, are decided by Alice — so changing either is a change on
their side rather than a LiteLLM upgrade for every user.
The app-id resolution this plugin carried is gone with it. Alice reads the
application off the authenticated key's metadata itself, from the payload it is
handed, so the ladder here was duplicating a decision the far side already
makes. The security property is unchanged and still comes from the proxy
stripping caller-supplied `user_api_key_*` before a guardrail sees the request.
Masking is now positional — the far side chose which texts it was answering
for, so it says which by index. Only `texts` is written; a new
`structured_messages` object would make the chat translation layer skip the
`texts` write-back and silently drop the edits. A mask that lands nowhere
blocks rather than passing the original through.
`request_data` carries live Python objects (an OpenTelemetry span among them),
so `_json_safe` copies it into something serialisable by a mechanical rule
rather than a field list — a list drifts from what the far side needs, a rule
cannot. Serialising naively raises, and that error would read as "guardrail
unavailable" on every request.
26 tests, covering verbatim forwarding, each verdict, positional masking, the
`structured_messages` identity trap, both unreachable policies, and the
serialiser's handling of unserialisable values and cycles.
* fix(alice guardrail): satisfy lint and code-quality CI gates
- Bound _json_safe's recursion and register it in recursive_detector's
ignore list (it already caps depth and dedupes cycles by id, matching
the repo's established pattern for legitimate bounded recursion).
- Clear ruff-strict budget breaches: annotate __init__'s return type,
raise TypeError (not ValueError) for a bad response body, type
_json_safe's payload as object instead of Any, and file-scope-ignore
ANN401 for **kwargs (forwarding it as object broke the call into
CustomGuardrail.__init__, confirmed via basedpyright).
- Clear type-discipline budget breaches: suppress the construction/
annotation checks on one-shot HTTP payloads, the module-level
guardrail registries, and _json_safe's bounded accumulator; narrow
AliceVerdict's list fields to tuples and _evaluate's request_data to
Mapping[str, object] where nothing downstream mutates them.
* test(alice guardrail): assert the guardrail actually registers
The registration test called init_guardrails_v2 and asserted nothing, so it
passed whether or not the guardrail was ever registered — TQ001 in the
test-quality gate, and a fair catch: a test that cannot fail is not covering
the thing it names.
Now asserts exactly one AliceGuardrail lands in litellm.callbacks under the
configured name.
This surfaced only after the ruff-strict and type-discipline gates stopped
failing ahead of it; the lint job runs its gates in sequence, so an earlier
failure masks every later one.
* fix(alice guardrail): reach 100% patch coverage, drop the ActiveFence naming
Codecov flagged 10 uncovered lines, all of them error paths — which is where a
guardrail most needs covering, since each one decides whether traffic flows
unscreened.
Two of the ten turned out to be dead rather than untested, and are removed:
- `except GuardrailRaisedException: raise` in apply_guardrail. `_evaluate`
raises httpx errors, Timeout and TypeError, never that — so the clause could
never fire.
- the trailing `json.dumps` probe in `_json_safe`. Everything json.dumps
handles natively is caught by the isinstance branches above (a dict or list
subclass included), so anything reaching the bottom — bytes, datetime, an
OpenTelemetry span — cannot cross the wire regardless. It now says so and
returns None.
The rest are now tested: a timeout, 502/503/504 as unreachable, a 4xx as NOT
unreachable (a rejected credential is our misconfiguration, not an outage, and
must not fail open), a non-object response body, and a model whose model_dump
raises.
Also drops "by ActiveFence" throughout — the product is Alice — and points the
header at alice.io. `ui_friendly_name` is now "Alice", which is the key
guardrailLogoMap and the garden card look up, so all three moved together.
* fix(alice guardrail): strip caller credentials, widen unreachable detection, block partial MASK
Addresses PR review: request_data no longer forwards secret_fields.raw_headers or
the root api_key to Alice (the caller's Authorization token in the clear otherwise);
HTTP 500, malformed JSON, and a non-object body now route through the configured
unreachable_fallback instead of raising raw, so fail_open still fails open on those;
a MASK verdict with even one out-of-range replacement now blocks entirely instead of
silently letting the rest through unmasked. Also tightens request_data's type and
documents the known streaming-mask limitation on the class.
* fix(alice guardrail): strip credentials at any depth, stop filtering on texts
secret_fields/api_key/headers/provider_specific_header can appear nested
under proxy_server_request, metadata, litellm_metadata, and their
requester_metadata/body sub-paths in a real captured payload — a
top-level-only strip missed all of those. _json_safe now drops these keys
by name wherever they occur during serialization, so a new nesting path
can't reintroduce the leak.
apply_guardrail also stopped skipping the call whenever texts was empty,
even when tool_calls/images/structured_messages carried content — that
was the plugin making a selection decision Alice's design says belongs on
the far side. It now only skips when none of the selectable fields have
anything in them.
* fix(alice guardrail): route an undecodable response body through the fallback
`response.json()` raises UnicodeDecodeError when the body carries bytes that
are not valid UTF-8, and that escaped the except clause: UnicodeDecodeError is
a *sibling* of json.JSONDecodeError under ValueError, not a subclass of it, so
naming only JSONDecodeError left it uncaught. Both fallback modes surfaced a
raw decoding error instead of applying unreachable_fallback — which for a
fail_open deployment meant a hard failure where it had asked for an allow.
Named explicitly rather than widening to ValueError, so the clause still says
which three conditions it means. Tested under both policies.
|
||
|---|---|---|
| .cargo | ||
| .circleci | ||
| .devcontainer | ||
| .githooks | ||
| .github | ||
| .semgrep/rules | ||
| backend | ||
| ci_cd | ||
| cookbook | ||
| db_scripts | ||
| docker | ||
| enterprise | ||
| examples | ||
| gateway | ||
| helm | ||
| litellm | ||
| litellm-proxy-extras | ||
| litellm-rust | ||
| migrations | ||
| packaging/homebrew | ||
| scripts | ||
| terraform | ||
| tests | ||
| ui | ||
| .dockerignore | ||
| .env.example | ||
| .git-blame-ignore-revs | ||
| .gitattributes | ||
| .gitguardian.yaml | ||
| .gitignore | ||
| .npmrc | ||
| AGENTS.md | ||
| ARCHITECTURE.md | ||
| basedpyright-code-budget.json | ||
| CLAUDE.md | ||
| codecov.yaml | ||
| CONTRIBUTING.md | ||
| cosign.pub | ||
| docker-compose.hardened.yml | ||
| docker-compose.yml | ||
| Dockerfile | ||
| GEMINI.md | ||
| LICENSE | ||
| license_cache.json | ||
| Makefile | ||
| mcp_servers.json | ||
| model_prices_and_context_window.json | ||
| model_prices_and_context_window.schema.json | ||
| osv-scanner.toml | ||
| package-lock.json | ||
| package.json | ||
| policy_templates.json | ||
| prometheus.yml | ||
| provider_endpoints_support.json | ||
| proxy_server_config.yaml | ||
| pyproject.toml | ||
| pyrightconfig.json | ||
| qa_sticky_session.sh | ||
| README.md | ||
| render.yaml | ||
| router_plugins.json | ||
| ruff-strict-budget.json | ||
| ruff-strict.toml | ||
| ruff-tests.toml | ||
| ruff.toml | ||
| schema.prisma | ||
| security.md | ||
| taplo.toml | ||
| test-quality-budget.json | ||
| type-discipline-budget.json | ||
| uv.lock | ||
| whitelisted_bedrock_models.txt | ||
🚅 LiteLLM
LiteLLM AI Gateway
Open Source AI Gateway for 100+ LLMs. Self-hosted. Enterprise-ready. Call any LLM in OpenAI format.
LiteLLM Proxy Server (AI Gateway) | Hosted Proxy | Enterprise Tier | Website
What is LiteLLM
LiteLLM is an open source AI Gateway that gives you a single, unified interface to call 100+ LLM providers — OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, Bedrock, Azure, and more — using the OpenAI format.
Use it as a Python SDK for direct library integration, or deploy the AI Gateway (Proxy Server) as a centralized service for your team or organization.
Jump to LiteLLM Proxy (LLM Gateway) Docs
Jump to Supported LLM Providers
Why LiteLLM
Managing LLM calls across providers gets complicated fast — different SDKs, auth patterns, request formats, and error types for every model. LiteLLM removes that friction:
- Unified API — one interface for 100+ LLMs, no provider-specific SDK juggling
- Drop-in OpenAI compatibility — swap providers without rewriting your code
- Production-ready gateway — virtual keys, spend tracking, guardrails, load balancing, and an admin dashboard out of the box
- 8ms P95 latency at 1k RPS (benchmarks)
OSS Adopters
Netflix |
Features
LLMs - Call 100+ LLMs (Python SDK + AI Gateway)
All Supported Endpoints - /chat/completions, /responses, /embeddings, /images, /audio, /batches, /rerank, /a2a, /messages and more.
Python SDK
uv add litellm
from litellm import completion
import os
os.environ["OPENAI_API_KEY"] = "your-openai-key"
os.environ["ANTHROPIC_API_KEY"] = "your-anthropic-key"
# OpenAI
response = completion(model="openai/gpt-4o", messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Hello!"}])
# Anthropic
response = completion(model="anthropic/claude-sonnet-4-20250514", messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Hello!"}])
AI Gateway (Proxy Server)
Getting Started - E2E Tutorial - Setup virtual keys, make your first request
uv tool install 'litellm[proxy]'
litellm --model gpt-4o
import openai
client = openai.OpenAI(api_key="anything", base_url="http://0.0.0.0:4000")
response = client.chat.completions.create(
model="gpt-4o",
messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Hello!"}]
)
Agents - Invoke A2A Agents (Python SDK + AI Gateway)
Supported Providers - LangGraph, Vertex AI Agent Engine, Azure AI Foundry, Bedrock AgentCore, Pydantic AI
Python SDK - A2A Protocol
from litellm.a2a_protocol import A2AClient
from a2a.types import SendMessageRequest, MessageSendParams
from uuid import uuid4
client = A2AClient(base_url="http://localhost:10001")
request = SendMessageRequest(
id=str(uuid4()),
params=MessageSendParams(
message={
"role": "user",
"parts": [{"kind": "text", "text": "Hello!"}],
"messageId": uuid4().hex,
}
)
)
response = await client.send_message(request)
AI Gateway (Proxy Server)
Step 1. Add your Agent to the AI Gateway — set protocolVersion to 1.0 or 0.3 per agent
Step 2. Call Agent via A2A SDK (requires a2a-sdk>=1.1.0)
import httpx
from a2a.client import A2ACardResolver, ClientConfig, ClientFactory
from a2a.types import Message, Part, Role, SendMessageRequest
from a2a.utils.constants import TransportProtocol
from uuid import uuid4
base_url = "http://localhost:4000/a2a/my-agent" # LiteLLM proxy + agent name
headers = {"Authorization": "Bearer sk-1234"} # LiteLLM Virtual Key
async with httpx.AsyncClient(headers=headers, timeout=60.0) as http_client:
resolver = A2ACardResolver(httpx_client=http_client, base_url=base_url)
agent_card = await resolver.get_agent_card()
config = ClientConfig(
httpx_client=http_client,
streaming=False,
supported_protocol_bindings=[TransportProtocol.JSONRPC, TransportProtocol.HTTP_JSON],
)
client = ClientFactory(config).create(agent_card)
request = SendMessageRequest(
message=Message(
message_id=uuid4().hex,
role=Role.ROLE_USER,
parts=[Part(text="Hello!")],
)
)
async for event in client.send_message(request):
populated = event.ListFields()
if populated and populated[0][0].name in ("message", "msg"):
print("".join(getattr(p, "text", "") or "" for p in populated[0][1].parts))
MCP Tools - Connect MCP servers to any LLM (Python SDK + AI Gateway)
Python SDK - MCP Bridge
from mcp import ClientSession, StdioServerParameters
from mcp.client.stdio import stdio_client
from litellm import experimental_mcp_client
import litellm
server_params = StdioServerParameters(command="python", args=["mcp_server.py"])
async with stdio_client(server_params) as (read, write):
async with ClientSession(read, write) as session:
await session.initialize()
# Load MCP tools in OpenAI format
tools = await experimental_mcp_client.load_mcp_tools(session=session, format="openai")
# Use with any LiteLLM model
response = await litellm.acompletion(
model="gpt-4o",
messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "What's 3 + 5?"}],
tools=tools
)
AI Gateway - MCP Gateway
Step 1. Add your MCP Server to the AI Gateway
Step 2. Call MCP tools via /chat/completions
curl -X POST 'http://0.0.0.0:4000/v1/chat/completions' \
-H 'Authorization: Bearer sk-1234' \
-H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
-d '{
"model": "gpt-4o",
"messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "Summarize the latest open PR"}],
"tools": [{
"type": "mcp",
"server_url": "litellm_proxy/mcp/github",
"server_label": "github_mcp",
"require_approval": "never"
}]
}'
Use with Cursor IDE
{
"mcpServers": {
"LiteLLM": {
"url": "http://localhost:4000/mcp/",
"headers": {
"x-litellm-api-key": "Bearer sk-1234"
}
}
}
}
Supported Providers (Website Supported Models | Docs)
Get Started
You can use LiteLLM through either the Proxy Server or Python SDK. Both give you a unified interface to access multiple LLMs (100+ LLMs). Choose the option that best fits your needs:
| LiteLLM AI Gateway | LiteLLM Python SDK | |
|---|---|---|
| Use Case | Central service (LLM Gateway) to access multiple LLMs | Use LiteLLM directly in your Python code |
| Who Uses It? | Gen AI Enablement / ML Platform Teams | Developers building LLM projects |
| Key Features | Centralized API gateway with authentication and authorization, multi-tenant cost tracking and spend management per project/user, per-project customization (logging, guardrails, caching), virtual keys for secure access control, admin dashboard UI for monitoring and management | Direct Python library integration in your codebase, Router with retry/fallback logic across multiple deployments (e.g. Azure/OpenAI) - Router, application-level load balancing and cost tracking, exception handling with OpenAI-compatible errors, observability callbacks (Lunary, MLflow, Langfuse, etc.) |
Stable Release: Use docker images with the -stable tag. These have undergone 12 hour load tests, before being published. More information about the release cycle here
Support for more providers. Missing a provider or LLM Platform, raise a feature request.
Deploy on AWS or GCP with Terraform
Run the LiteLLM proxy as a production-ready componentized stack (gateway, backend, UI on separate services; managed Postgres + Redis + object store) using the published Terraform modules. Both modules are on the public Terraform Registry — no auth needed.
AWS — ECS Fargate + Aurora + ElastiCache + ALB
— opens an in-browser shell, already authenticated to your AWS account. Once inside, run:
git clone https://github.com/BerriAI/litellm.git
cd litellm/terraform/litellm/aws/examples/default
cp terraform.tfvars.example terraform.tfvars # edit region/tenant/env
terraform init && terraform apply
Or call the module from your own root config:
# main.tf
terraform {
required_version = ">= 1.6.0"
required_providers {
aws = { source = "hashicorp/aws", version = "~> 5.60" }
}
}
provider "aws" {
region = "us-west-2"
}
module "litellm" {
source = "BerriAI/litellm/aws"
version = "~> 1.89"
region = "us-west-2"
azs = ["us-west-2a", "us-west-2b"]
tenant = "acme"
env = "prod"
# Production: provide an ACM cert. Without one, set allow_plaintext_alb = true
# (dev/trial only).
# acm_certificate_arn = "arn:aws:acm:us-west-2:111122223333:certificate/..."
allow_plaintext_alb = true
}
output "litellm_url" {
value = module.litellm.alb_dns_name
}
terraform init
terraform apply
Provider API keys live in AWS Secrets Manager; reference ARNs via gateway_extra_secrets. Full input list and architecture diagram on the registry page.
GCP — Cloud Run + Cloud SQL + Memorystore + HTTPS LB
Real 1-click. Opens Cloud Shell, clones this repo, and walks you through terraform apply via a built-in DeployStack tutorial — pick the project, the tutorial sets up the Artifact Registry remote repo, writes terraform.tfvars from your answers, and runs apply.
To call the module from your own config instead, Cloud Run can't pull from ghcr.io directly, so first set up a one-time Artifact Registry remote repo backed by GHCR:
gcloud artifacts repositories create litellm \
--location=us-central1 \
--repository-format=docker \
--mode=remote-repository \
--remote-docker-repo=https://ghcr.io \
--project=my-gcp-project
Then:
# main.tf
terraform {
required_version = ">= 1.6.0"
required_providers {
google = { source = "hashicorp/google", version = "~> 6.10" }
google-beta = { source = "hashicorp/google-beta", version = "~> 6.10" }
}
}
provider "google" { project = "my-gcp-project"; region = "us-central1" }
provider "google-beta" { project = "my-gcp-project"; region = "us-central1" }
module "litellm" {
source = "BerriAI/litellm/google"
version = "~> 1.89"
project_id = "my-gcp-project"
region = "us-central1"
tenant = "acme"
env = "prod"
# Replace my-gcp-project with your GCP project ID (same value as project_id above).
image_registry = "us-central1-docker.pkg.dev/my-gcp-project/litellm/berriai"
# Production: provide DNS already pointing at the LB IP for Google-managed certs.
# Without one, set allow_plaintext_lb = true (dev/trial only).
# lb_domains = ["proxy.example.com"]
allow_plaintext_lb = true
}
output "litellm_url" {
value = module.litellm.load_balancer_url
}
terraform init
terraform apply
Provider API keys live in Secret Manager; reference resource IDs (e.g. projects/my-gcp-project/secrets/openai-api-key) via gateway_extra_secrets. Full input list and architecture diagram on the registry page.
Both stacks include
- The full componentized split (gateway / backend / UI as independent services)
- Managed Postgres (writer + reader) and Redis
- Versioned object store for proxy state + file uploads
- An auto-generated
LITELLM_MASTER_KEYin your cloud's secret manager - A one-off migration job that runs
prisma migrate deploybefore the proxy starts - The same
proxy_configsurface as the Helm chart — pass YAML as a typed map
The Terraform modules live at terraform/litellm/aws/ and terraform/litellm/gcp/ in this repo; the registry entries are read-only mirrors updated on each release.
Run in Developer Mode
Services
- Setup .env file in root
- Run dependent services
docker-compose up db prometheus
Backend
- Run
make bootstrap - Start proxy backend:
uv run python litellm/proxy/proxy_cli.py
Frontend
- Navigate to
ui/litellm-dashboard(dependencies were already installed w/make bootstrap) - Start dashboard:
npm run dev
Verify Docker Image Signatures
All LiteLLM Docker images published to GHCR are signed with cosign. Every release is signed with the same key introduced in commit 0112e53.
Verify using the pinned commit hash (recommended):
A commit hash is cryptographically immutable, so this is the strongest way to ensure you are using the original signing key:
cosign verify \
--key https://raw.githubusercontent.com/BerriAI/litellm/0112e53046018d726492c814b3644b7d376029d0/cosign.pub \
ghcr.io/berriai/litellm:<release-tag>
Verify using a release tag (convenience):
Tags are protected in this repository and resolve to the same key. This option is easier to read but relies on tag protection rules:
cosign verify \
--key https://raw.githubusercontent.com/BerriAI/litellm/<release-tag>/cosign.pub \
ghcr.io/berriai/litellm:<release-tag>
Replace <release-tag> with the version you are deploying (e.g. v1.83.0-stable).
Enterprise
For companies that need better security, user management and professional support
Get an Enterprise License Talk to founders
This covers:
- ✅ Features under the LiteLLM Commercial License:
- ✅ Feature Prioritization
- ✅ Custom Integrations
- ✅ Professional Support - Dedicated discord + slack
- ✅ Custom SLAs
- ✅ Secure access with Single Sign-On
Contributing
We welcome contributions to LiteLLM! Whether you're fixing bugs, adding features, or improving documentation, we appreciate your help.
Quick Start for Contributors
This requires uv to be installed.
git clone https://github.com/BerriAI/litellm.git
cd litellm
make install-dev # Install development dependencies
make format # Format your code
make lint # Run all linting checks
make test-unit # Run unit tests
make format-check # Check formatting only
For detailed contributing guidelines, see CONTRIBUTING.md.
📖 Contributing to documentation? The LiteLLM docs have moved to a separate repository: BerriAI/litellm-docs. Please open doc PRs there. Docs are served at docs.litellm.ai.
Code Quality / Linting
LiteLLM follows the Google Python Style Guide.
Our automated checks include:
- Black for code formatting
- Ruff for linting and code quality
- MyPy for type checking
- Circular import detection
- Import safety checks
All these checks must pass before your PR can be merged.
Support / talk with founders
- Schedule Demo 👋
- Community Discord 💭
- Community Slack 💭
- Our emails ✉️ ishaan@berri.ai / krrish@berri.ai
