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A consumer is the runtime identity of a calling application. It holds credentials and routing configuration. Its slug is the first path segment on the proxy URL shown in the Connect tab. Each consumer belongs to one gateway and has a type: Every consumer routes over the registries bound to it. Who calls it never changes which registries or models it reaches; a caller’s token, key, or certificate only decides whether the request is admitted.

Consumers list

Open Agent GatewayConsumers.

Create a consumer

  1. Open ConsumersNew Application.
  2. Work through the create tabs:
    • AuthName, Protocol (LLM or MCP), and Authentication (see below). Copy API keys when shown (once only).
    • Routing — strategy + registries/models (or MCP target).
    • Policies — optional Add Policy or Clone policies from another consumer.
  3. Save. The success step and the detail Connect tab show ready-to-use snippets.

Detail tabs

Identity

Every consumer is an application. identity says whether a person stands behind each request and how TrustGate learns who that person is. It never selects a registry or a model. The identity fixes the credential shape (the gateway enforces it with 409): When to use which: a backend agent or scheduled job acts as the application (leave the switch off). An internal assistant where each person reaches their Notion or Linear acts for users with Users sign in. A product that owns its own user directory and calls MCP server-side uses source: app and links accounts through the end-user connections API. The self-service MCP Store is a built-in consumer that acts for platform users. Access rules govern the Store only. A custom consumer’s servers are exactly the registries bound to it under Routing, the same set for every caller it admits.

Auth binding

Identity providers and mTLS CAs are gateway-level trust anchors shared by many consumers. auth_binding narrows which verified callers may enter this consumer. Empty lists accept every caller the anchor verifies. API keys need no binding: a key belongs to one consumer. Enforced after consumer resolution on both the LLM proxy plane and the MCP plane (JWT, introspection, and mTLS). A caller the anchor verifies but the binding excludes gets 403. Up to 100 entries per list, 256 characters each.

Attached auth entities

PUT /v1/gateways/{gateway_id}/consumers/{consumer_id} accepts auths: [id, …] and applies it in the same transaction as identity, so identity and credential move together: Detaching the last OAuth2 auth from a consumer whose users sign in hands it to the built-in NeuralTrust login.

Strategies

Load-balancing strategies (including smart routing) are grouped under Load balancing in the Strategy dropdown; Simple routing and Fallback under Direct. MCP consumers always bind registries/tools directly — they do not show the Strategy selector or load-balancing algorithms.

Providers editor

For simple routing and non-smart load balancing, use Add Registry, set optional weight (weighted strategy), choose all models/tools or restrict via the model browser, and set a default model when needed.

Smart routing

Use Complexity tiers (at least two): Simple / Medium / Hard, each with a registry and model. Same registry can appear on multiple tiers with different models. Details: Load balancing, Smart routing, Model resolution, Fallback.

Model policies

For each bound registry you can:
  • Allow all models, or filter to a subset.
  • Set a default model used when the client does not name one.
When the consumer uses load balancing or smart routing, Connect snippets use "model": "auto" so the gateway picks the registry and model. With multiple registries and no load balancing, clients must specify the model themselves.

Connect tab

Open a consumer → Connect for:
  • Gateway host (SaaS or your Private LLM URL)
  • Consumer slug
  • Auth header examples (X-AG-API-Key, and X-AG-Gateway-Slug on Private)
  • Language snippets (cURL, Python, Node, …)
  • Same host and key for embeddings, images, files, rerank, and models
The provider credential remains in TrustGate. Keep the consumer API key secret.

Edit routing later

Open the consumer → Routing to change strategy, registries, smart-routing tiers, or the fallback chain without recreating the consumer.