About Inference Routing

NVIDIA OpenShell handles inference traffic through two endpoints: inference.local and external endpoints. The following table summarizes how OpenShell handles inference traffic.

Path	How It Works
External endpoints	Traffic to hosts like api.openai.com or api.anthropic.com is treated like any other outbound request, allowed or denied by network_policies. Refer to Customize Sandbox Policies.
inference.local	A special endpoint exposed inside every sandbox for routing inference traffic locally, preserving privacy and security. The privacy router strips the original credentials, injects the configured backend credentials, and forwards to the managed model endpoint.

How inference.local Works

When code inside a sandbox calls https://inference.local, the privacy router routes the request to the configured backend for that gateway. The configured model is applied to generation requests, and provider credentials are supplied by OpenShell rather than by code inside the sandbox.

If code calls an external inference host directly, that traffic is evaluated only by network_policies.

Property	Detail
Credentials	No sandbox API keys needed. Credentials come from the configured provider record.
Configuration	One provider and one model define sandbox inference for the active gateway. Every sandbox on that gateway sees the same inference.local backend.
Provider support	OpenAI, Anthropic, and NVIDIA providers all work through the same endpoint.
Hot-refresh	OpenShell picks up provider credential changes and inference updates without recreating sandboxes. Changes propagate within about 5 seconds by default.

Supported API Patterns

Supported request patterns depend on the provider configured for inference.local.

OpenAI-compatible

Pattern	Method	Path
Chat Completions	POST	/v1/chat/completions
Completions	POST	/v1/completions
Responses	POST	/v1/responses
Model Discovery	GET	/v1/models
Model Discovery	GET	/v1/models/*

Anthropic-compatible

Pattern	Method	Path
Messages	POST	/v1/messages

Requests to inference.local that do not match the configured provider’s supported patterns are denied.

Next Steps

Continue with one of the following:

• To set up the backend behind inference.local, refer to Configure Inference Routing.

• To control external endpoints, refer to Policies.