Bring your own model (BYOK)

"Bring your own key" (BYOK) means you supply the model-provider credentials, and Cordy uses them to talk directly to that provider. Cordy does not resell tokens, does not proxy your requests through its own servers, and does not require a Cordy account.

Why BYOK

• No markup, no middleman. You pay the provider directly, at their rates.
• No lock-in. Switch providers or models whenever you like; your history stays put.
• Privacy. Your prompts go only to the provider you chose. See the privacy model.
• Access to everything. Any model your provider offers — including brand-new ones — is usable the moment it ships.

What "OpenAI-compatible" means

Most providers expose an OpenAI-compatible HTTP API: the same /v1/chat/completions request shape the OpenAI SDK uses. Because of this, a single "custom endpoint" field lets Cordy talk to almost anything — official clouds, aggregators like OpenRouter, or a model server you run yourself (vLLM, Ollama, LM Studio, LocalAI). You provide a base URL and an API key, and Cordy speaks the standard protocol.

Where your keys are stored

Cordy never writes your keys to a shared server. Storage is on-device and product-specific:

Product	Key storage
Cordy for Chrome	Encrypted IndexedDB inside the extension (never synced)
Cordy Desktop	Not stored by Cordy — each CLI agent holds its own provider config
Cordy for Mobile	Android Keystore (AES-256-GCM) / iOS Keychain, device-bound
Cordy Gateway	Upstream keys are Fernet-encrypted per channel in your own database

The gateway option

If you run several Cordy clients — or several apps of your own — you can point them all at your own Cordy Gateway instead of configuring provider keys in each app. The gateway holds the upstream keys once, and each client authenticates with a Cordy gateway key (wnx_…). You get one metered, cost-controlled endpoint, and the upstream credentials never leave your server. This is optional — every client also works standalone.