cloudflare-ai-gateway

Cloudflare AI Gateway

Cloudflare AI Gateway is a managed proxy that sits between your application and AI inference providers (Anthropic, OpenAI, OpenRouter, z.ai, etc.). It provides observability, caching, rate limiting, cost tracking, and fallback routing — without changing your application code beyond updating the base URL.

• Docs: https://developers.cloudflare.com/ai-gateway/
• Dashboard: https://dash.cloudflare.com/?to=/:account/ai/ai-gateway
• API: https://developers.cloudflare.com/api/resources/ai_gateway/

Key Features

Feature	Description
Logging	Full request/response logging with metadata (tokens, latency, cost)
Caching	Cache identical prompts to reduce cost and latency; configurable TTL
Rate Limiting	Per-gateway or per-user rate limits to control spend
Cost Tracking	Real-time cost analytics across all providers
Retries	Automatic retries with backoff on provider errors
Fallbacks	Route to a backup provider if the primary fails
Real-time Logs	Stream logs in the dashboard for debugging

How It Works

AI Gateway acts as a reverse proxy. You replace the provider's base URL with the gateway URL:

https://gateway.ai.cloudflare.com/v1/{account_id}/{gateway_id}/{provider}

Supported {provider} values include:

• anthropic — Anthropic (Claude models)
• openai — OpenAI (GPT models)
• openrouter — OpenRouter (multi-model aggregator)
• workers-ai — Cloudflare Workers AI
• azure-openai — Azure OpenAI Service
• google-ai-studio — Google AI Studio (Gemini)
• huggingface — Hugging Face Inference API
• groq — Groq
• cohere — Cohere
• mistral — Mistral AI
• perplexity-ai — Perplexity
• Custom providers via the universal endpoint

Universal Endpoint

For providers not in the built-in list (like z.ai), use the universal endpoint:

POST https://gateway.ai.cloudflare.com/v1/{account_id}/{gateway_id}

With a body that specifies the provider and target URL. See the universal endpoint docs.

Setting Up Claude Code CLI with AI Gateway

Step 1: Create an AI Gateway

In the Cloudflare dashboard or via Pulumi (see below), create a gateway. Note your:

• Account ID (found in dashboard URL or API)
• Gateway ID (the slug you chose, e.g., claude-code)

Step 2: Configure Claude Code

Set the ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL environment variable to route all Anthropic API calls through the gateway:

# In your shell profile (~/.bashrc, ~/.zshrc, etc.)
export ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL="https://gateway.ai.cloudflare.com/v1/YOUR_ACCOUNT_ID/YOUR_GATEWAY_ID/anthropic"

Or in a project's .env file:

ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL=https://gateway.ai.cloudflare.com/v1/YOUR_ACCOUNT_ID/YOUR_GATEWAY_ID/anthropic

Or in Claude Code's settings (~/.claude/settings.json or .claude/settings.json):

{
  "env": {
    "ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL": "https://gateway.ai.cloudflare.com/v1/YOUR_ACCOUNT_ID/YOUR_GATEWAY_ID/anthropic"
  }
}

Step 3: Verify

# Start Claude Code — it should work transparently
claude

# Check the AI Gateway dashboard for logged requests
# https://dash.cloudflare.com/?to=/:account/ai/ai-gateway/YOUR_GATEWAY_ID

Your ANTHROPIC_API_KEY is still sent in the x-api-key header as normal. The gateway proxies it to Anthropic. The gateway itself authenticates via your Cloudflare account.

Setting Up Claude Code on the Web with AI Gateway

Claude Code on the web (claude.ai) uses Anthropic's infrastructure directly and does not support ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL overrides. You cannot route claude.ai web traffic through AI Gateway.

However, for Claude Code web sessions (code.claude.com / Claude Code in the browser IDE), you can set environment variables via:

1. SessionStart hooks in your project's .claude/settings.json:

{
  "hooks": {
    "SessionStart": [
      {
        "type": "command",
        "command": "echo 'ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL=https://gateway.ai.cloudflare.com/v1/ACCT_ID/GATEWAY_ID/anthropic' >> \"$CLAUDE_ENV_FILE\""
      }
    ]
  }
}

2. Environment variables in .claude/settings.json:

{
  "env": {
    "ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL": "https://gateway.ai.cloudflare.com/v1/ACCT_ID/GATEWAY_ID/anthropic"
  }
}

Note: Claude Code on the web must have network access to gateway.ai.cloudflare.com. This works in most environments but may be blocked in restricted network setups.

Routing to Other Providers via AI Gateway

OpenRouter via AI Gateway

OpenRouter aggregates 200+ models. Route through AI Gateway for logging:

# The gateway proxies to OpenRouter's API
export OPENROUTER_BASE_URL="https://gateway.ai.cloudflare.com/v1/YOUR_ACCOUNT_ID/YOUR_GATEWAY_ID/openrouter"

Use with any OpenAI-compatible client:

curl "https://gateway.ai.cloudflare.com/v1/ACCT_ID/GATEWAY_ID/openrouter/chat/completions" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $OPENROUTER_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "model": "anthropic/claude-sonnet-4-20250514",
    "messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "Hello"}]
  }'

z.ai via AI Gateway (Universal Endpoint)

z.ai (Zhipu AI) provides GLM models with an OpenAI-compatible API. Route through the universal endpoint:

curl "https://gateway.ai.cloudflare.com/v1/ACCT_ID/GATEWAY_ID" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '[{
    "provider": "zhipu",
    "endpoint": "https://open.bigmodel.cn/api/paas/v4/chat/completions",
    "headers": {
      "Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_ZHIPU_API_KEY",
      "Content-Type": "application/json"
    },
    "query": {
      "model": "glm-4-plus",
      "messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "Hello"}]
    }
  }]'

Alternatively, configure z.ai as a custom provider in the AI Gateway dashboard and use:

https://gateway.ai.cloudflare.com/v1/ACCT_ID/GATEWAY_ID/zhipu

Fallback Chains

AI Gateway supports fallback routing — if the primary provider fails, automatically try another:

curl "https://gateway.ai.cloudflare.com/v1/ACCT_ID/GATEWAY_ID" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '[
    {
      "provider": "anthropic",
      "endpoint": "messages",
      "headers": { "x-api-key": "YOUR_ANTHROPIC_KEY" },
      "query": { "model": "claude-sonnet-4-20250514", "max_tokens": 1024, "messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "Hello"}] }
    },
    {
      "provider": "openai",
      "endpoint": "chat/completions",
      "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_OPENAI_KEY" },
      "query": { "model": "gpt-4o", "messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "Hello"}] }
    }
  ]'

Infrastructure Setup

No Native Pulumi/Terraform Resource

As of March 2026, there is no native Pulumi or Terraform resource for Cloudflare AI Gateway. The upstream Terraform provider tracks this as issue #6720.

Create the gateway via the dashboard or the Cloudflare REST API.

Create via Dashboard

1. Go to AI Gateway
2. Click Create Gateway
3. Set a name/slug (e.g., claude-code) — this becomes the {gateway_id} in URLs
4. Configure rate limiting and caching as desired

Create via REST API

# One-time setup — create the gateway
curl -X POST "https://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/accounts/${ACCOUNT_ID}/ai-gateway/gateways" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $CLOUDFLARE_API_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "name": "claude-code",
    "slug": "claude-code",
    "rate_limiting_interval": 60,
    "rate_limiting_limit": 200,
    "rate_limiting_technique": "fixed",
    "cache_ttl": 0
  }'

Reference in Pulumi

Since no native resource exists, reference the gateway by name in your Pulumi stack outputs:

import * as pulumi from "@pulumi/pulumi";

const config = new pulumi.Config();
const cfConfig = new pulumi.Config("cloudflare");
const accountId = cfConfig.require("accountId");
const aiGatewayName = config.get("aiGatewayName") ?? "claude-code";

// Gateway must be created via dashboard or API first
export const aiGatewayId = aiGatewayName;
export const anthropicBaseUrl = pulumi.interpolate`https://gateway.ai.cloudflare.com/v1/${accountId}/${aiGatewayName}/anthropic`;
export const openrouterBaseUrl = pulumi.interpolate`https://gateway.ai.cloudflare.com/v1/${accountId}/${aiGatewayName}/openrouter`;

Monitoring and Analytics

Once configured, the AI Gateway dashboard provides:

• Request logs: Every request with provider, model, tokens, latency, status
• Cost analytics: Aggregated spend by provider, model, and time period
• Cache hit rate: How many requests were served from cache
• Error rates: Failed requests by provider with error details
• Real-time streaming: Live log tail for debugging

Access at: https://dash.cloudflare.com/?to=/:account/ai/ai-gateway/YOUR_GATEWAY_ID

Troubleshooting

Issue	Solution
401 Unauthorized	Your API key is passed through to the provider. Verify ANTHROPIC_API_KEY is set correctly
403 Forbidden	Check that your Cloudflare account has AI Gateway enabled
429 Too Many Requests	Hit the gateway rate limit. Increase rateLimitingLimit or wait
502 Bad Gateway	The upstream provider is down. Check provider status pages
Requests not appearing in logs	Verify the URL path is correct: /v1/{account_id}/{gateway_id}/{provider}
Claude Code hangs on start	Ensure ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL does not have a trailing slash

References

• AI Gateway Overview
• Supported Providers
• Universal Endpoint
• Caching
• Rate Limiting
• Logging
• Analytics
• Cloudflare AI Gateway API
• Terraform provider issue #6720 (no native IaC resource yet)
• Claude Code Environment Variables