AI API Proxy Guard

Problem

Teams experimenting with or deploying AI features often end up with scattered provider API keys, no central visibility on token spend, and little control over what prompts actually leave the organisation. Costs can spike without warning, keys get shared insecurely, and there is no simple place to add basic logging, rate limits or safety checks before requests hit OpenAI, Anthropic or other providers.

Solution

AI API Proxy Guard is a lightweight proxy that sits between your application and AI providers. It gives teams a single controlled endpoint, enforces basic budgets and rate limits, logs requests for auditability, and provides a clean place to add simple guardrails. Existing SDKs keep working, you just point them at the proxy instead of the provider directly.

How people use it

• Deploy the proxy in front of the AI providers your team already uses.
• Point application or agent code at the single proxy endpoint (one base URL change).
• Set budget caps, rate limits or basic filtering rules as needed.
• Review logs to see which models were called, by whom, and at what cost.
• Swap or add providers later without rewriting application code.

Status & outcomes

Prototype / internal tool. Built by RETSA Group.

Used to give small teams predictable spend and basic control when experimenting with or shipping AI features, without building a full enterprise gateway.

Approach

Focused tool, not an over-engineered platform. Designed to solve the immediate problems of key sprawl, cost visibility and basic safety for teams that are not yet ready for a heavy enterprise AI gateway. Keeps the integration path deliberately simple.

What AI API Proxy Guard does not do

• It is not a full enterprise AI gateway with advanced routing, multi-tenant billing or complex policy engines.
• It does not replace provider-level safety systems or content moderation.
• It is not a turnkey SaaS product; it is a practical tool built for specific operational constraints.
• Advanced features such as sophisticated prompt-injection detection or automatic failover remain out of scope for this focused version.