Quickstart

Get Cognisafe running in under 5 minutes.

1. Create an account

   Sign up at cognisafe.uk. The free tier includes 10,000 requests per month — no credit card required.

2. Install the SDK

   Python

   pip install cognisafe
   

   For Anthropic or other providers, install the extras:

   pip install "cognisafe[anthropic]"   # + Anthropic
   pip install "cognisafe[all]"         # all providers
   
3. Get your API key

   In the dashboard: API Keys → Create key. Keys look like:

   csk_prod_a1b2c3d4e5f6...
   

   Store it as an environment variable — never hard-code it in source:

   export COGNISAFE_API_KEY="csk_prod_a1b2c3d4e5f6..."
   export COGNISAFE_PROJECT_ID="my-app"
   
4. Configure and patch

   Call cognisafe.configure() once at startup, then patch your provider:

   import cognisafe
   
   cognisafe.configure(
       api_key="csk_your_key_here",   # or reads COGNISAFE_API_KEY
       project_id="my-app",           # or reads COGNISAFE_PROJECT_ID
   )
   
   cognisafe.patch_openai()  # rewrites openai.base_url to the Cognisafe proxy
   

   For TypeScript / Node.js:

   import cognisafe from 'cognisafe';
   
   cognisafe.configure({ apiKey: 'csk_your_key_here', projectId: 'my-app' });
   cognisafe.patchOpenAI();
   
5. Make an LLM call

   Your existing code is unchanged — Cognisafe captures everything automatically:

   from openai import OpenAI
   
   client = OpenAI()  # base_url is already pointing to Cognisafe proxy
   
   response = client.chat.completions.create(
       model="gpt-4o",
       messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Hello, world!"}],
   )
   print(response.choices[0].message.content)
   

   Every call is logged, priced, and queued for safety scoring.

6. View in the dashboard

   Open cognisafe.uk/dashboard → Overview. Your request appears within a second, including model, token counts, cost, and latency. Safety scores appear within a few seconds once the async worker processes the job.

Proxy mode (OpenAI, Mistral) adds zero latency overhead — the proxy forwards the response to your app at the same time as it logs the payload. Direct mode (Anthropic, Cohere) wraps the provider client’s create method, which adds one lightweight HTTP call to the Cognisafe API in the background after the response is returned to you.