📚 Beginner Tutorial

AI API Proxy
Beginner Tutorial

Learn AI API proxy from scratch with our friendly, step-by-step tutorial. Perfect for developers new to AI integration with practical examples and hands-on exercises.

Understanding Proxies

Learn what an API proxy is and why you need one

Setting Up

Install and configure your first gateway

Making Requests

Send your first AI API request through the proxy

Start Learning Resources

Step-by-Step Tutorial

Follow along to master AI API proxy basics

📖

Lesson 1: What is an AI API Proxy?

An AI API proxy sits between your application and AI service providers like OpenAI or Anthropic. It handles authentication, routing, rate limiting, and monitoring so you don't have to implement these features in every application. Think of it as a smart middleman that makes working with AI APIs easier and more secure.

💡 Key Benefit

Instead of managing multiple API keys for different providers, you use one gateway key that works across all AI services.

⚙️

Lesson 2: Basic Setup

Setting up your proxy is straightforward. You'll need to install the gateway, configure your API keys, and start the server. Here's the simplest way to get started:

                        Install & Configure
                        Bash
                    

# Install the gateway
pip install ai-gateway-proxy

# Create a configuration file
ai-gateway init

# Add your API keys to the config
providers:
  openai:
    api_key: "your-openai-key-here"

# Start the gateway
ai-gateway start

🚀

Lesson 3: Your First Request

Now that your gateway is running, let's make your first AI request. The gateway provides a unified interface that works just like the OpenAI API, so you can use familiar patterns:

                        First Request
                        Python
                    

import openai

# Point to your gateway instead of OpenAI directly
openai.api_base = "http://localhost:3000/v1"
openai.api_key = "your-gateway-key"

# Make a request just like normal!
response = openai.ChatCompletion.create(
    model="gpt-4-turbo",
    messages=[
        {"role": "user", "content": "Hello!"}
    ]
)

print(response.choices[0].message.content)

🎯 Practice Exercise

Try modifying the message content and observe the response. Then try changing the model parameter to see how the gateway handles different AI models.

AI API ProxyBeginner Tutorial