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Inference targets - Amazon Bedrock AgentCore
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Inference targets

You can add inference targets to your gateway to route LLM traffic to model providers. The gateway acts as a unified LLM proxy layer, allowing clients to connect to a single endpoint and route requests to the correct model provider based on the model specified in the request. Inference targets provide model-based routing, credential abstraction, and centralized governance for LLM traffic across multiple providers.

Adding inference targets to your gateway is useful when you want to:

  • Provide a single endpoint that routes to multiple model providers (such as Amazon Bedrock, OpenAI, Anthropic, or other OpenAI-compatible services) without requiring clients to manage provider-specific configurations.

  • Abstract credential management so that clients authenticate to the gateway while the gateway authenticates to providers on their behalf.

  • Apply centralized governance through Amazon Bedrock Guardrails and Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Policy consistently across all LLM calls regardless of provider.

  • Use OpenAI SDK or Anthropic SDK directly with the gateway endpoint, switching between models by changing the model string.

  • List available models across all configured providers through a single aggregated endpoint.

Inference targets use the inference key in the target configuration. You can configure an inference target in one of two ways:

  • Connector – Zero-configuration setup for supported model providers. Recommended for most use cases.

  • Provider – Explicit control over the endpoint, model mappings, and operations. Use when you need to customize routing behavior.

The following topics describe each configuration type in detail.