--- title: Getting started with AI Runtime Control summary: >- Configure AI Runtime Control (ARC) by adding a provider and creating a virtual key, then route your first request through it. url: >- https://www.fastly.com/documentation/guides/platform/ai-runtime-control/getting-started-with-ai-runtime-control --- AI Runtime Control, or ARC, is a control plane that sits between your applications and the large language model (LLM) providers they call. It gives you a single place to manage access, routing, and usage accounting for the AI traffic moving between your organization and your providers. AI traffic typically comes from two sources: features built into your own applications and developer tools that your engineers use in their daily work. Both send requests to provider APIs. ARC routes both through a single path so credentials, routing, and request records live in one place instead of being managed separately for each application or tool. This guide walks you through getting started with AI Runtime Control (ARC) to route your first request through it. By the end, you'll have a provider configured, a virtual key created, and an application making requests through ARC. For an overview of what ARC is and how it fits together, check out our guide describing [how it works](https://www.fastly.com/documentation/guides/platform/ai-runtime-control/how-ai-runtime-control-works/). ## Prerequisites Before you begin, be sure you have the following in place: - You're assigned the [superuser role](https://www.fastly.com/documentation/guides/organizations-and-accounts/account-members-and-permissions/about-user-roles-and-permissions/#account-management-roles). Other account roles can't access ARC and will receive an authorization error. - You have credentials for the LLM provider you want to configure, along with any additional details that provider requires. - You know which models you want to make available through ARC. - You have a base URL and an API key for the LLM provider you want to configure. Refer to the provider's documentation for instructions on how to find these details. ## Quick start Start by adding a provider and creating a virtual key. A provider is an LLM service that ARC routes traffic to, such as Anthropic, and a virtual key is an ARC-issued credential that maps to it in place of a raw provider key. 1. Log in to the [Fastly control panel](https://manage.fastly.com). 2. Go to **Tools** > [**AI Runtime Control**](https://manage.fastly.com/ai-runtime-control/summary). 3. Click **Get started**. 4. From the list of LLM providers that appear, select a provider for your initial setup. You can add more later. That provider's setup controls appear. 5. Fill out the provider form as follows: - In the **API key** field, enter the API key for your provider. - Under **Model permissions**, select **Allow all models** to make every model available, or select **Limit model access** to specify which models to allow. 6. Click **Next**. The virtual key creation controls appear. 7. In the **Key name** field, enter a human-readable name for the key. 8. Leave the **Provider Routing & Failover**, **Expiration**, **Budget limits**, **Rate limit**, and **AI Firewall** controls unset. You can update these later by [editing your virtual key](https://www.fastly.com/documentation/guides/platform/ai-runtime-control/managing-virtual-keys). 9. Click **Create virtual key**. A key value and its creation notification appears. This is the key your application presents in place of a provider key when it sends requests through ARC. 10. Click **Copy key** or the clipboard Clipboard icon to copy the virtual key and store it in a safe place. > **IMPORTANT:** This is the only time the key will be visible. Record the key and keep it secure. For your security it will not appear in the control panel. 11. Click **Continue** and then **Finish setup**. The setup completion page appears. 12. Point an existing provider SDK at ARC's URL, using the virtual key in place of the raw provider key. ## What's next Once you've completed the getting started steps, you can: - [review the logs](https://www.fastly.com/documentation/guides/platform/ai-runtime-control/monitoring-ai-usage-with-arc/#viewing-the-logs) that ARC records for each request, searchable and filterable by virtual key, user, provider, model, and date range. - configure additional [providers](https://www.fastly.com/documentation/guides/platform/ai-runtime-control/managing-providers/) and [virtual keys](https://www.fastly.com/documentation/guides/platform/ai-runtime-control/managing-virtual-keys/) for your other applications and developer tools.