Integration guides
Northern Inference exposes an OpenAI-compatible endpoint at
https://northerninference.ca/v1. Anything that speaks
OpenAI (and most tools do) works with a base URL swap and your NI key.
Cursor
Use Northern Inference as your Cursor backend
Continue.dev
Use Northern Inference in Continue (VS Code / JetBrains)
Aider
Use Northern Inference with Aider's pair-programmer CLI
Zed
Use Northern Inference in the Zed editor
Open WebUI
Use Northern Inference with Open WebUI
LibreChat
Use Northern Inference in LibreChat
LangChain / LlamaIndex
Use Northern Inference from LangChain / LlamaIndex
Anthropic SDK
Use the official Anthropic SDK against the /v1/messages endpoint
curl / HTTPie
Talk to Northern Inference directly with curl
pi (pi-coding-agent)
Use Northern Inference with @mariozechner/pi-coding-agent
OpenClaw
Use Northern Inference with OpenClaw (placeholder)
Starting from zero
- Sign up at northerninference.ca (starter credits on signup, no card required).
- In the portal, go to Keys → Create key. Copy the
ni_live_…string once shown (it's not displayed again). - Pick an integration above and follow its config snippet. Base URL everywhere is the same:
https://northerninference.ca/v1. - Hit your first call. Check the Usage tab in the portal. You'll see the request appear within a few seconds, including the full chain-of-custody record.
Privacy tier selection
Every call routes through one of NI's privacy tiers. Default is
managed_canadian_cloud: Canadian data residency, no US
jurisdiction except where the TLS root CA sits. Request tier per-call via
extra_body.privacy_tier (OpenAI SDKs) or the
X-Privacy-Tier header (raw HTTP), or bake a default tier into
an API key when you create it.
| Tier | Status | Who sees your prompts |
|---|---|---|
| self_hosted_hardware | Coming Soon | Only you (customer-hosted compute) |
| nitro_enclave | Coming Soon | Nobody (cryptographic isolation) |
| managed_canadian_cloud | Live (default) | AWS Bedrock / Azure, Canadian regions only |
| provider_api | Live | Provider directly (OpenAI, Anthropic, etc. on US/EU servers) |
Need an integration that's not listed? Let us know or open a ticket in the portal. We'll write the guide and publish it here.