What is DeltaLLM?

DeltaLLM is a self-hosted AI gateway that gives you a single OpenAI-compatible API for 100+ LLM providers — with enterprise controls like routing, budgets, guardrails, and team management built in.

One Line Change

# Before: Direct to OpenAI
client = OpenAI(api_key="sk-...")

# After: Through DeltaLLM
client = OpenAI(
    base_url="http://localhost:4002/v1",  # ← Just change this
    api_key="sk-deltallm-key"
)

That's it. Your existing code works unchanged — now with routing, spend tracking, and guardrails.

Admin UI

Manage all your model deployments, API keys, teams, and usage from a clean web interface:

Key Features

• Unified API — One OpenAI-compatible endpoint for 100+ LLM providers
• Virtual API Keys — Scoped keys with budgets, rate limits, and model restrictions
• MCP Gateway — Register external MCP servers, expose approved tools safely
• Routing & Failover — Multiple strategies with automatic retries
• Guardrails — Built-in PII detection and prompt injection protection
• Spend Tracking — Per-key, per-team, per-model cost attribution
• RBAC — Role-based access at platform, organization, and team levels
• Admin Dashboard — Full-featured web UI for managing everything
• Response Caching — Memory, Redis, or S3 backends for lower latency and cost
• Observability — Prometheus metrics, request logging, and spend analytics

Docs: https://deltallm.readthedocs.io/en/latest

Choose Your Install Path

• Option 1: Docker Compose: fastest way to run DeltaLLM locally for evaluation.
• Option 2: Kubernetes From a Released Chart: install with Helm from the public chart repository without cloning the repository.
• Option 3: Local Development From the Repo: best path for contributors and for local backend or UI work.

Option 1: Docker Compose

Use Docker Compose if you want the fastest working setup.

1. Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/deltawi/deltallm.git
cd deltallm

2. Create a local config

cp config.example.yaml config.yaml

For the quickest first successful request, enable one-time model bootstrap in config.yaml:

general_settings:
  model_deployment_source: db_only
  model_deployment_bootstrap_from_config: true

This seeds the sample model_list into the database on first startup. After the first successful boot, set model_deployment_bootstrap_from_config back to false.

3. Generate required secrets

DeltaLLM will not start with placeholder values such as change-me.

python3 -c 'import secrets; print("DELTALLM_MASTER_KEY=sk-" + secrets.token_hex(20) + "A1")'
python3 -c 'import secrets; print("DELTALLM_SALT_KEY=" + secrets.token_hex(32))'

Create a .env file in the project root:

DELTALLM_MASTER_KEY=sk-your-generated-master-key
DELTALLM_SALT_KEY=your-generated-salt-key
OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-your-openai-key
PLATFORM_BOOTSTRAP_ADMIN_EMAIL=admin@example.com
PLATFORM_BOOTSTRAP_ADMIN_PASSWORD=ChangeMe123!

The sample config uses OPENAI_API_KEY. If you want a different provider, edit config.yaml before starting.

4. Start DeltaLLM

docker compose --profile single up -d --build

If you want the full Presidio engine for guardrails instead of the default regex fallback:

INSTALL_PRESIDIO=true docker compose --profile single up -d --build

This starts:

• DeltaLLM on http://localhost:4002
• PostgreSQL
• Redis

5. Verify the gateway

Check liveliness:

curl http://localhost:4002/health/liveliness

List available models:

curl http://localhost:4002/v1/models \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $DELTALLM_MASTER_KEY"

If this list is empty, you did not bootstrap a model and must either:

• set model_deployment_bootstrap_from_config: true and restart once, or
• create a model deployment in the Admin UI before sending requests

6. Send your first request

curl http://localhost:4002/v1/chat/completions \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $DELTALLM_MASTER_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "model": "gpt-4o-mini",
    "messages": [
      {"role": "user", "content": "Hello from DeltaLLM"}
    ]
  }'

7. Open the Admin UI

Open http://localhost:4002.

If you set PLATFORM_BOOTSTRAP_ADMIN_EMAIL and PLATFORM_BOOTSTRAP_ADMIN_PASSWORD, you can log in with that initial admin account. You can also keep using the master key for gateway calls.

Option 2: Kubernetes From a Released Chart

Released Helm charts and matching values overlays are published to the public Helm repository at https://deltawi.github.io/deltallm.

helm repo add deltallm https://deltawi.github.io/deltallm
helm repo update

Generate the required secrets first:

export DELTALLM_MASTER_KEY="$(python3 -c 'import secrets; print(\"sk-\" + secrets.token_hex(20) + \"A1\")')"
export DELTALLM_SALT_KEY="$(openssl rand -hex 32)"

Quick-start install with bundled PostgreSQL and Redis:

helm install deltallm deltallm/deltallm \
  --version <chart-version> \
  --namespace deltallm \
  --create-namespace \
  -f https://deltawi.github.io/deltallm/values-eval-<chart-version>.yaml \
  --set secret.values.masterKey="$DELTALLM_MASTER_KEY" \
  --set secret.values.saltKey="$DELTALLM_SALT_KEY" \
  --set-string env[0].name=PLATFORM_BOOTSTRAP_ADMIN_EMAIL \
  --set-string env[0].value=admin@example.com \
  --set-string env[1].name=PLATFORM_BOOTSTRAP_ADMIN_PASSWORD \
  --set-string env[1].value='ChangeMe123!'

If you want the Presidio-enabled image variant from the same chart release:

helm install deltallm deltallm/deltallm \
  --version <chart-version> \
  --namespace deltallm \
  --create-namespace \
  -f https://deltawi.github.io/deltallm/values-eval-<chart-version>.yaml \
  --set secret.values.masterKey="$DELTALLM_MASTER_KEY" \
  --set secret.values.saltKey="$DELTALLM_SALT_KEY" \
  --set-string env[0].name=PLATFORM_BOOTSTRAP_ADMIN_EMAIL \
  --set-string env[0].value=admin@example.com \
  --set-string env[1].name=PLATFORM_BOOTSTRAP_ADMIN_PASSWORD \
  --set-string env[1].value='ChangeMe123!' \
  --set image.tag=v<chart-version>-presidio

values-eval-<chart-version>.yaml is the self-contained quick-start profile. Use values-production-<chart-version>.yaml with external PostgreSQL and Redis for production.

Use the latest GitHub Release version for <chart-version>. The exact copy-paste install commands for each release live in the release notes.

For full Kubernetes examples and values, see docs/deployment/kubernetes.md.

Option 3: Local Development From the Repo

Use this path if you want to work on the backend or UI locally instead of running the full Compose stack.

Requirements

• Python 3.11+
• Node.js 20+
• PostgreSQL 15+
• Redis 7+ optional

1. Install dependencies

uv is the recommended backend installer because the repo includes uv.lock.

uv sync --dev

If you want the full Presidio engine locally for guardrails:

uv sync --dev --extra guardrails-presidio

In another shell for the UI:

cd ui
npm ci
cd ..

2. Export environment variables

export DATABASE_URL="postgresql://postgres:postgres@localhost:5432/deltallm"
export DELTALLM_CONFIG_PATH=./config.yaml
export DELTALLM_MASTER_KEY="$(python3 -c 'import secrets; print(\"sk-\" + secrets.token_hex(20) + \"A1\")')"
export DELTALLM_SALT_KEY="$(openssl rand -hex 32)"
export OPENAI_API_KEY="sk-your-openai-key"
export PLATFORM_BOOTSTRAP_ADMIN_EMAIL="admin@example.com"
export PLATFORM_BOOTSTRAP_ADMIN_PASSWORD="ChangeMe123!"

If Redis is available:

export REDIS_URL="redis://localhost:6379/0"

3. Create config and enable one-time bootstrap if needed

cp config.example.yaml config.yaml

For a fresh database, enable one-time bootstrap in config.yaml if you want the sample model available immediately:

general_settings:
  model_deployment_source: db_only
  model_deployment_bootstrap_from_config: true

4. Initialize Prisma and the database

uv run prisma generate --schema=./prisma/schema.prisma
uv run prisma py fetch
uv run prisma db push --schema=./prisma/schema.prisma

5. Start the backend

uv run uvicorn src.main:app --host 0.0.0.0 --port 8000 --reload

6. Start the UI

cd ui
npm run dev

The local development UI runs at http://localhost:5000 and proxies API requests to the backend on http://localhost:8000.

Useful Links

• Docker quick start
• Local installation
• Gateway usage examples
• Configuration reference
• Model configuration
• Authentication

Testing

uv run pytest

Support & Contribute

⭐ Star this repo if you find it useful!

• 🐛 Report issues
• 💡 Request features
• 📖 Read the docs
• 🤝 PRs welcome — see Local Development to get started

License

See LICENSE.