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What is BYOK?

Stewrd is managed AI agent infrastructure — orchestration, browser automation, file storage, and sessions. With BYOK, you bring your own LLM API key so you control which model runs and how much inference costs. Stewrd charges only for infrastructure. Your LLM costs go directly to your provider.

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Supported Providers

ProviderStatusBase URL
OpenAISupportedhttps://api.openai.com/v1
OpenRouterSupportedhttps://openrouter.ai/api/v1
OpenAI — Use your OpenAI API key directly for access to GPT-4o, GPT-4o mini, o1, and other OpenAI models. OpenRouter — Access hundreds of models (GPT-4o, Claude, Llama, Mixtral, and more) through a single API key.

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How to Configure

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1. Get a provider API key

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2. Configure in your dashboard

Go to your project settings, select your project, and click Edit under LLM Configuration:
  • Provider: Select OpenAI or OpenRouter
  • API Key: Paste your provider API key
  • Model: Choose a model (see table below)

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3. Send requests as normal

Your API requests work exactly the same — Stewrd uses your key to call the LLM provider on your behalf. 
curl https://api.stewrd.dev/v1/agent \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer sk-stw_your_key" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"message": "Summarize the latest AI news"}'

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Model Selection

You can use any model available on your provider. Some popular choices:
ModelProviderBest For
gpt-4oOpenAIHigh quality reasoning
gpt-4o-miniOpenAIFast, cost-effective
o1OpenAIComplex reasoning tasks
moonshotai/kimi-k2.5OpenRouterGeneral purpose, good balance
openai/gpt-4oOpenRouterHigh quality reasoning (via OpenRouter)
anthropic/claude-sonnet-4OpenRouterNuanced analysis, coding
meta-llama/llama-3.1-70b-instructOpenRouterCost-effective, fast

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Security

Your provider API key is protected with multiple layers:
  • Encrypted at rest using AES-256-GCM
  • Never logged in any application or access logs
  • Never returned in any API response (only a has_provider_key: true/false flag)
  • Transmitted securely over HTTPS between Stewrd services
  • Scoped per project — each project can have its own key and model
If your provider key is compromised, rotate it in your provider’s dashboard and update it in your Stewrd project settings.

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Without BYOK

If you don’t configure a provider key, Stewrd falls back to its default model configuration. This may have limited availability — we recommend configuring your own key for production use.