Salad AI Gateway Overview

OpenAI-compatible LLM API powered by SaladCloud distributed GPU infrastructure.

Last Updated: April 09, 2026

Salad AI Gateway is currently in closed beta. To request access, sign up at salad.com/ai-gateway.

What is Salad AI Gateway?

Salad AI Gateway is a managed LLM API service that gives you direct access to powerful open-source models through a single, OpenAI-compatible endpoint - with no infrastructure to deploy or manage. It is powered by SaladCloud’s distributed GPU network, bringing the same cost-efficiency of self-hosted models with the simplicity of a hosted API.

Any tool or library that supports a custom base URL - Aider, OpenCode, OpenClaw, Cline, Cursor, Goose, Vercel AI SDK, and more - works with Salad AI Gateway out of the box.

API Endpoint

https://ai.salad.cloud/v1

Available Models

The following models are available during the closed beta:

Model	Description
qwen3.6-35b-a3b	Qwen 3.6 35B Mixture of Experts - best for agentic tasks and complex reasoning
qwen3.6-27b	Qwen 3.6 27B - strong balance of capability and speed
qwen3.5-9b	Qwen 3.5 9B - fastest response times, suited for lighter tasks

Additional models will be added as the service moves toward general availability.

Quick Start

The API follows the OpenAI v1/chat/completions format. Once you have access, send requests using your Salad API key in the Authorization header:

curl https://ai.salad.cloud/v1/chat/completions \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer <your-salad-api-key>" \
  -d '{
    "model": "qwen3.6-35b-a3b",
    "messages": [
      {"role": "user", "content": "Explain distributed GPU computing in one paragraph."}
    ]
  }'

Make sure to replace <your-salad-api-key> with your actual Salad API key.

Use with OpenAI-Compatible Tools

Because Salad AI Gateway exposes a standard OpenAI-compatible endpoint, you can use it with any tool that supports a custom base URL.

We have integration guides for many popular agentic tools - Cline, Aider, OpenCode, OpenClaw, Kilo Code, Roo Code, Continue, Goose, Hermes Agent, and more. All of those guides apply here with one difference: use standard authentication instead of the Salad-Api-Key custom header. Set your Salad API key as the API key in whichever field the tool provides (the Authorization: Bearer header), and point the base URL to https://ai.salad.cloud/v1.

Cline

VS Code AI coding agent

Aider

CLI AI pair programmer

OpenCode

Terminal coding agent

OpenClaw

Always-on AI assistant

Kilo Code

VS Code coding agent

Roo Code

VS Code AI coding agent

Continue

VS Code + JetBrains coding assistant

Vercel AI SDK

TypeScript AI app framework

Goose

CLI + desktop AI agent

Hermes Agent

Self-improving AI agent with MCP

Python (openai SDK):

from openai import OpenAI

client = OpenAI(
    base_url="https://ai.salad.cloud/v1",
    api_key="your-salad-api-key",
)

response = client.chat.completions.create(
    model="qwen3.6-35b-a3b",
    messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Hello from Salad AI Gateway!"}],
)
print(response.choices[0].message.content)

Environment variables (for tools like Aider, etc.):

export OPENAI_BASE_URL=https://ai.salad.cloud/v1
export OPENAI_API_KEY=your-salad-api-key

Why Salad AI Gateway?

• No Infrastructure - no container groups to deploy, no replicas to manage, no cold starts to worry about
• Always on - our distributed GPU network ensures high availability and reliability
• OpenAI-compatible - easy integration with any OpenAI-compatible tool
• SaladCloud Pricing - 90% cost savings vs traditional providers
• Data Privacy - your data is never used for training
• Powered by Sustainable Computing - utilizing otherwise wasted GPU resources to reduce carbon footprint

Get Access

Salad AI Gateway is currently in closed beta.

Sign up for early access