For developers

Familiar interfaces. Explicit boundaries.

Build with Cardean through documented APIs, SDKs and deployment paths. The developer experience makes policy and failure behaviour visible — not to hide important differences behind a universal abstraction.

Gateway developer preview opens in August 2026 Analytics and Identity developer access follow — Analytics in 2026, Identity in 2027

A beam of traffic passing through a sequence of gates, representing developer access to the Cardean Gateway.
Start with Gateway

Point one AI workflow at a governed endpoint.

The first quickstart takes a developer from an existing OpenAI-compatible request to a Cardean-managed endpoint, then adds project identity and one policy.

  1. Create or receive a Cardean environment.
  2. Add a provider credential to the controlled credential store.
  3. Create a project and issue an application credential.
  4. Change the application base URL.
  5. Send a test request.
  6. Apply an allowed-model or budget policy.
  7. Inspect the decision and request metadata.
Developer paths

Choose the path that matches what you are building.

Integrate

API reference, SDK patterns, authentication and request examples.

Operate

Configuration, deployments, upgrades, metrics, logs, backups and recovery.

Govern

Policy model, identities, roles, evidence, retention and exceptions.

Extend

Provider adapters, webhooks, exports, policy hooks and community integrations.

Contribute

Repository guides, issue labels, development setup, roadmap and release process.

Code example lead-in

Change the endpoint. Keep the request shape. Add policy at the boundary.

PythonTypeScriptcURL
cURL
# Illustrative only — point an existing OpenAI-compatible request at a Cardean-managed endpoint.
curl https://gateway.example.cardean.io/v1/chat/completions \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $CARDEAN_APP_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"model": "gpt-4o-mini", "messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "hello"}]}'

Tested release examples for Python, TypeScript and cURL ship with the documentation.

Developer support

Get help in the open when possible.

Documentation

Documentation for supported behaviour. Read the documentation principles.

Public issue tracker

For reproducible defects. Open an issue on GitHub.

Security channel

For vulnerabilities, email [email protected].

Community discussions

For implementation questions. Join the discussion on GitHub.

Support portal

For contracted environments. Email Cardean.