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Apps

AI Gateway User Apps

A User App lets people call the AI Gateway with their own API key. Instead of creating an app for every person who wants to use AI in their everyday tools, everyone with access to the project calls one shared URL with a personal key. The gateway knows who made each request, applies that person's budget, and reports their usage.

Use an app for software and the User App for people. A support chatbot or a nightly batch job is an app, with its own API key, in a pool. An engineer using Claude Code or Codex is a person, and calls the User App with a personal key.

Each AI Gateway project has one User App, created for you. A new project gets it right away; an existing project gets it on its next production deployment. A project connected to source control also needs the User App route in its repository—see Keep the gateway up to date. It has:

  • A URL under /u/, such as https://my-gateway-main-2e18f50.zuplo.app/u/741d375d631b429293481d6d0458bb64. Everyone calls the same URL.
  • Personal API keys—each person creates their own. A personal key works only on the User App URL, and an app's API key doesn't work there.
  • A per-person budget—an optional spending allowance, such as $50 per day, that applies to each person separately.
  • A policy chain—the policies that run on every request made with a personal key.

The User App isn't part of a pool. Pool budgets and policy templates apply to apps; gateway-wide usage limits apply to both.

Setting up the User App

Only Admins set up the User App: they choose who can use it, set its budget, and edit its policies. With the role-based access control (RBAC) add-on, that means project or account Admins; Developers, Members, and AI Users can use the User App but can't change its budget or policies. Without RBAC, every account member is an Admin.

Admins manage the User App on the AI Gateway project's Users tab.

  1. Give people access. Everyone with a role on the AI Gateway project—Admin, Developer, Member, or AI User—can use the User App.

    With RBAC, to give someone access to the User App and nothing else, open Settings > Members & Access on the AI Gateway project, click Add to project, enter their email, and choose the AI User role. Someone who isn't in your Zuplo account yet is added to it as a Member. An AI User can call the User App and see their own keys and usage, but not the rest of the project's configuration or anyone else's usage. See Managing Project Members and Role Permissions.

  2. Set a per-person budget. The User App starts with no budget. Open Budgets and set how much each person can spend Per person per day and Per person per month, such as $50 and $100. Each person gets the full amount, counted separately.

    Set a budget to limit spend

    Until you set a budget, the gateway tracks what each person spends through the User App, and People shows it, but nothing limits it. A budget you add partway through a day or month counts what each person already spent in that period.

  3. Review the policies. Policies edits the User App's policy chain, such as which models people can use. The same policies as an app's policy chain are available.

People lists everyone on the project, how many personal keys each person has, and what each person spent today and this month. Gateway shows the User App's name, which you can change, its configuration ID, and its URL.

Personal budgets

To give one person a different amount from everyone else, an Admin clicks the Budget button on the person's row in People. Per day and Per month always appear; Per hour and Per week appear only when the User App's budget limits them. For each period, choose:

  • Default, shown with the User App's amount, such as Default · $50. The person's limit follows the User App's amount, including when you change it later.
  • Custom to set an amount for this person only, such as $200 per day for a heavy user. Everyone else keeps the User App's amount.

A period that has no User App amount shows No limit, and you can't set a custom amount for it until you set one on Budgets. While anyone has a custom amount for a period, you can't remove that period's amount from Budgets; switch those people back to the default first.

Click Save to apply the change. To remove all of a person's custom amounts, click Use all defaults and confirm. Changing a budget never resets what the person has already spent in the current period.

Using the User App

  1. Create a personal API key. Open the AI Gateway project in the Zuplo Portal and go to the Home tab. Under My API keys, click New key, give it a name such as Laptop CLI, and copy the key.

  2. Call the gateway. Copy the Gateway URL shown at the top of the Home tab once the gateway has a production deployment—the User App's /u/ URL—and use it with your personal key in place of the provider's base URL and API key. The Home tab also shows setup steps for common tools such as Claude Code and Codex.

For example, to call the Chat Completions endpoint with curl:

TerminalCode
curl https://my-gateway-main-2e18f50.zuplo.app/u/741d375d631b429293481d6d0458bb64/v1/chat/completions \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $ZUPLO_PERSONAL_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "model": "anthropic/claude-sonnet-5",
    "messages": [{ "role": "user", "content": "Hello" }]
  }'

The User App serves the same endpoints as an app—Chat Completions, Responses, and Messages. The integration guides for Claude Code, Codex, Claude Desktop, GitHub Copilot, and goose start from your Gateway URL and personal key.

The Home tab also shows your allowance and what you've spent against it. If no budget is set, it says your requests have no personal spending limit. Once you reach your allowance, the gateway refuses requests with 429 Too Many Requests until the period resets or an Admin raises your budget.

Removing access

A personal key works only while its owner has access to the AI Gateway project. When someone loses access to the project, or is removed from the Zuplo account, their personal keys for that project are deleted and stop working within seconds. You don't need to rotate any keys.

Additional Resources

  • Apps - Apps for services and integrations, each with its own API key.
  • Role Permissions - Details on the AI User role and other Zuplo account and project roles.
  • Usage Limits - Gateway-wide limits that apply to every request.
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Managing AppsPolicy Chains