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Your Cloud key is the model credential. Leave the models slot unset and every turn rides the console’s gateway.

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How the gateway is wired

Managed inference is not a bespoke client. It is the stock @ai-sdk/anthropic provider, pointed at the console instead of at Anthropic.

One provider, one base URL swap. VENDO_API_KEY is the bearer token.

The console speaks the Anthropic Messages wire, which is the whole reason the stock provider serves it.
Gateway traffic does not carry Vendo’s deployment-identity headers, so inference never appears in the console’s deployment inventory. Usage still meters.

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Which model you get

The gateway serves the vendo family as literal model ids. The console maps each name to a concrete model server-side, so a Cloud-keyed app can be retuned without a client release. Leave a seat unset and it takes its own family id above, so an empty models block still puts each job on the name tuned for it. Names pass through verbatim — nothing is translated on the client. That is also how the default seat’s three billed tiers work: vendo-fast, vendo, and vendo-strong, at the rates on the Vendo Cloud page.

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Pinning a model

Two ways, and an explicit model object beats both.
app/api/vendo/[...vendo]/route.ts
.env.local
Precedence runs top to bottom: an explicit model object, then the environment pin, then the configured string, then that seat’s own family name. Every other seat has a pin of its own — VENDO_MODEL_APPS, VENDO_MODEL_REVIEW, VENDO_MODEL_JUDGE, and VENDO_MODEL_EXTRACT. Passing your own AI SDK model object into models also works and always wins, so Vendo runs without a Cloud key.

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If a seat has no model

Seats resolve lazily, on the first call that needs one. A missing credential therefore surfaces on the first turn, not at boot, as E-MODEL-001. A provider key sitting in your shell is a credential, not a selection — Vendo never picks a provider for you. And if your product already runs its own agent loop, Vendo’s internal turns still need models of their own and will not borrow yours; leaving the seats unset is what hands them the gateway.

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Verifying the model

vendo doctor names the credential the runtime will resolve. It reads your environment and makes no model call.
Terminal
A key that is set but malformed reports E-CLOUD-001.