---
title: "Akto"
url: "/en/docs/proxy/guardrails/akto"
canonical_url: "https://docs.litellm.ai/en/docs/proxy/guardrails/akto"
type: "docs"
summary: "Use Akto as a guardrail provider, enabling runtime security for all LLM traffic routed through the proxy. Akto is purpose-built to secure autonomous and agentic AI systems that inspects every request and response inline, risk-scores..."
related:
  - "/en/docs/proxy/guardrails/aim_security"
  - "/en/docs/proxy/guardrails/alice"
---
# Akto

> Index of all LiteLLM docs: https://docs.litellm.ai/llms.txt


Use [Akto](https://www.akto.io/) as a guardrail provider, enabling runtime security for all LLM traffic routed through the proxy. Akto is purpose-built to secure autonomous and agentic AI systems that inspects every request and response inline, risk-scores interactions, and enforces policy decisions to block harmful actions, data exposure, and unsafe behavior before they can occur.

Akto's key capabilities include:

- **Agentic AI Discovery** - automatically discover AI agents, MCP servers, and GenAI applications across your cloud environments
- **Continuous AI Red Teaming** - run 4,000+ AI-specific probes to identify risks such as prompt injection, tool misuse, policy bypass, and emerging attack patterns in CI/CD
- **Runtime Guardrails** - enforce configurable policies covering prompt injection, jailbreaks, sensitive data leakage, unauthorized tool use, schema violations, and more
- **AI Security Posture Management** - unified visibility into risk scores, compliance gaps, and security metrics, with support for 10+ standards including OWASP GenAI, NIST AI RMF, and MITRE ATLAS

The integration with akto uses a **two-entry guardrail pattern**:
- `akto-validate` (`pre_call`): validates requests against your security policies before they reach the LLM
- `akto-ingest` (`post_call`): ingests requests and responses into Akto for monitoring and analysis

## Quick Start

### 1. Get Your Akto Credentials

Set up the Akto Guardrail API Service and grab:
- `AKTO_GUARDRAIL_API_BASE` — your Guardrail API Base URL
- `AKTO_API_KEY` — your API key

### 2. Configure in `config.yaml`

#### Block + Ingest (recommended)

Use both entries below. This gives you:
- pre-call block decision
- post-call ingestion for allowed traffic

Keep these as two separate entries (`akto-validate` and `akto-ingest`).

```yaml
guardrails:
  - guardrail_name: "akto-validate"
    litellm_params:
      guardrail: akto
      mode: pre_call
      akto_base_url: os.environ/AKTO_GUARDRAIL_API_BASE
      akto_api_key: os.environ/AKTO_API_KEY
      default_on: true
      unreachable_fallback: fail_closed   # optional: fail_open | fail_closed (default: fail_closed)
      guardrail_timeout: 5                # optional, default: 5
      akto_account_id: "1000000"         # optional, env fallback: AKTO_ACCOUNT_ID
      akto_vxlan_id: "0"                 # optional, env fallback: AKTO_VXLAN_ID

  - guardrail_name: "akto-ingest"
    litellm_params:
      guardrail: akto
      mode: post_call
      akto_base_url: os.environ/AKTO_GUARDRAIL_API_BASE
      akto_api_key: os.environ/AKTO_API_KEY
      default_on: true
```

#### Monitor-only mode

If you only want logging/ingestion and no blocking, keep only `akto-ingest`.

```yaml
guardrails:
  - guardrail_name: "akto-ingest"
    litellm_params:
      guardrail: akto
      mode: post_call
      akto_base_url: os.environ/AKTO_GUARDRAIL_API_BASE
      akto_api_key: os.environ/AKTO_API_KEY
      default_on: true
```

### 3. Test request

```shell
curl -i http://localhost:4000/v1/chat/completions \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer <your litellm key>" \
  -d '{
    "model": "gpt-5.6-luna",
    "messages": [
      {"role": "user", "content": "Hello, how are you?"}
    ]
  }'
```

If a request gets blocked:

```json
{
  "error": {
    "message": "Prompt injection detected",
    "type": "None",
    "param": "None",
    "code": "403"
  }
}
```

## How It Works

When an LLM request arrives, the Akto connector hands the payload to the Akto Guardrail Engine, which evaluates it against your input policies and returns the verdict. Approved requests are forwarded to the LLM provider. Responses are sent back through the engine for output guardrail checks before being delivered to the caller. Every decision flows into the Akto dashboard for monitoring, threat analysis, and remediation.

**Block + Ingest mode:**
```
Request → LiteLLM → Akto guardrail check
  → Allowed  → forward to LLM → ingest response
  → Blocked  → ingest blocked marker → 403 error
```

**Monitor-only mode:**
```
Request → LiteLLM → forward to LLM → get response
  → Send to Akto (guardrails + ingest) → log only
```

## Event Behavior

| Entry | LiteLLM hook | Akto call behavior |
|------|---|---|
| `akto-validate` | `pre_call` | Awaited call with `guardrails=true`, `ingest_data=false` |
| `akto-ingest` | `post_call` | Fire-and-forget call with `guardrails=true`, `ingest_data=true` |

When blocked in `pre_call`, LiteLLM sends one fire-and-forget ingest payload with blocked metadata and returns `403`.

## Supported Parameters

| Parameter | Env Variable | Default | Description |
|-----------|-------------|---------|-------------|
| `akto_base_url` | `AKTO_GUARDRAIL_API_BASE` | *required* | Akto Guardrail API Base URL |
| `akto_api_key` | `AKTO_API_KEY` | *required* | API key (sent as `Authorization` header) |
| `akto_account_id` | `AKTO_ACCOUNT_ID` | `1000000` | Akto account id included in payload |
| `akto_vxlan_id` | `AKTO_VXLAN_ID` | `0` | Akto vxlan id included in payload |
| `unreachable_fallback` | — | `fail_closed` | `fail_open` or `fail_closed` |
| `guardrail_timeout` | — | `5` | Timeout in seconds |
| `default_on` | — | `true` (recommended) | Enables the guardrail entry by default |

## Error Handling

| Scenario | `fail_closed` (default) | `fail_open` |
|----------|------------------------|-------------|
| Akto unreachable | ❌ Blocked (503) | ✅ Passes through |
| Akto returns error | ❌ Blocked (503) | ✅ Passes through |
| Guardrail says no | ❌ Blocked (403) | ❌ Blocked (403) |

In case you want to reach out to the Akto team, contact them at [support@akto.io](mailto:support@akto.io).

## Related pages

- [Aim Security](https://docs.litellm.ai/en/docs/proxy/guardrails/aim_security.md)
- [Alice](https://docs.litellm.ai/en/docs/proxy/guardrails/alice.md)