A consumer group in AI Gateway allows you to organize and manage consumers (API users) collectively. This enables you to apply plugins and policies to multiple consumers at once, making it easier to manage access control and rate limiting for different types of users.

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Group Structure

A consumer group consists of:

  • Name: A unique identifier for the group
  • Consumers: A list of consumers in the group
  • Plugins: Plugins applied to all consumers in the group

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Group-level Plugins

Plugins applied to a consumer group affect all consumers in that group, providing efficient management of shared configurations. Key plugin applications at this level include:

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Rate Limiting

Rate limiting at the group level provides sophisticated traffic control mechanisms. The system implements shared quotas across group members, allowing for efficient resource allocation and preventing any single consumer from monopolizing resources. Group-specific limits can be configured to match different service tiers or business requirements, enabling granular control over API usage. The system also supports the ability to override individual limits when necessary, providing flexibility while maintaining group-level control. This hierarchical approach ensures fair resource distribution while still accommodating the specific needs of individual consumers.

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Authentication

Group-level authentication streamlines access management across multiple consumers. The system supports group-wide authentication mechanisms that apply uniformly to all group members, simplifying security management. Shared credentials can be configured for the entire group, reducing administrative overhead while maintaining security. Sophisticated access control policies can be implemented at the group level, enabling consistent security rules for all group members. This centralized approach ensures consistent security practices while simplifying the management of multiple consumers.

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Usage Control

Usage control at the group level enables comprehensive resource management. The system implements aggregate quotas that apply across all group members, allowing for efficient resource allocation and monitoring. Group-level policies can be established to govern various aspects of API usage, from access patterns to resource consumption. Sophisticated resource allocation mechanisms ensure fair distribution of resources among group members while maintaining overall system stability. This approach provides both flexibility and control in managing API consumption across multiple consumers.

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Plugin Inheritance

Consumer groups follow a specific plugin inheritance pattern that ensures proper configuration precedence and flexibility.

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Priority Order

The system implements a hierarchical inheritance model for plugin configurations:

  1. Consumer-specific plugins (Highest precedence; allows for individual customization.)
  2. Consumer group plugins (Shared configurations for all members of a group.)
  3. Route plugins (Path-specific behavior for all consumers.)
  4. Service plugins (Applies to all routes within a service.)
  5. Gateway plugins (Baseline configuration across the entire system.)

This structured hierarchy ensures that configurations can be appropriately scoped while maintaining a clear order of precedence.

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Plugin Merging

The plugin merging system implements intelligent rules for combining configurations. Following the principle that more specific settings override more general ones, the system ensures lower-level configurations can customize or override higher-level defaults as needed.

  • While group settings can be overridden by more specific configurations, they still provide a powerful way to establish default behavior for all group members.
  • The system also supports multiple group memberships, allowing for complex scenarios where consumers might belong to multiple groups with overlapping configurations.

This merging strategy provides both flexibility and predictability in how different levels of configuration interact.