Authorization: Bearer <token>. An API key ties the call to your account and raises the quota. With no key, the call is anonymous.
Get an API key
- Sign up at app.vlm.run.
- Open Settings → API keys and copy a key.
- Export it so the examples below can read it:
api_key in the OpenAI SDK, or as the bearer token in cURL. To call without an account, omit the Authorization header or send Bearer vlmrun.
Examples
503. Retry the request. The key is not rejected. Response bodies are in Error Codes.
Tiers
Callers behind the same NAT or proxy share the anonymous IP bucket. Per-tier limits are in Rate Limits.
Tier resolution
The Gateway resolves the tier fromAuthorization in this order:
- No header, an empty token, or
Bearer vlmrun: Anonymous, keyed by client IP. A self-hosted deployment can reject a missing header with401and{"detail": "Missing API Key"}. The hosted Gateway does not. - Valid VLM Run API key: Authenticated as the owning user and organization.
- Any other bearer token:
401invalid API key. Unrecognized tokens do not fall back to anonymous access.
Credits
An authenticated call is charged to the caller’s organization. No credit left returns402:
paid access tier.
They need an organization with billing enabled: a payment method on file and a plan other than free.
Other callers, anonymous included, get 403 with model_not_entitled.
Every other model is public and reachable anonymously.
Every endpoint in the API
Reference accepts anonymous
traffic today: chat completions, models, embeddings, audio transcriptions,
and health. Use an API key for production.
Related
Rate Limits
Per-tier quotas and how to request a higher limit.
Error Codes
401, 402, 403, and 429 response bodies.