A Bedrock provider that assumes an IAM role kept failing with `AssumeRole` `AccessDenied` for several minutes after its target role's trust policy was changed, and only recovered on a gateway restart or a long wait. The request itself was correct: the AWS CLI, using the same identity and the same `ExternalId`/role/region, accepted the identical request immediately against the same endpoint. The difference is the connection. The Go SDK reuses a keep-alive connection for the STS client, so every `AssumeRole` rides one connection pinned to a single STS endpoint. After a trust-policy change, that connection kept returning `AccessDenied` for minutes while a fresh connection (the AWS CLI) accepted the identical request at once; it recovered only when the connection recycled or the process restarted. The exact STS-internal reason is unconfirmed (likely per-endpoint propagation of the change) — what is verified is that a fresh connection per call recovers promptly. Disable keep-alive on the STS client so each `AssumeRole` opens a fresh connection and a trust-policy update takes effect quickly. `AssumeRole` runs at most once per credential-cache lifetime, so keep-alive bought nothing here. The change is scoped to the STS client only; Bedrock model requests are signed by a separate client and keep their connection pooling. ## What the data proves | | CLI | Gateway | |--------------------|-------------------------------------------|------------------------------------------| | Identity / key | `bedrock-base-user-useless` / `AKIA…44NL` | same | | STS endpoint | `sts.us-east-2.amazonaws.com` | same | | Request params | `ExternalId=QL53…`, role, session, 900 | same | | Recovery after fix | 7 seconds (21:27:54) | ~4.5 minutes (21:32:17) | | Re-hitting AWS? | new call each time | yes — 77 fresh `AssumeRole`s, all denied | Same identity, params, and endpoint, concurrent — yet the gateway was denied for ~4.5 minutes while the CLI recovered in 7 seconds, and the gateway made a fresh `AssumeRole` on every request (so it was not caching a failure). The only difference was connection reuse. After disabling keep-alive, the same break/fix experiment brought gateway recovery down from ~4.5 minutes to ~7 seconds, in lockstep with the AWS CLI.
aibridge
aibridge provides an HTTP handler that intercepts AI client requests bound for upstream AI providers (Anthropic, OpenAI, Copilot). It records token usage, prompts, and tool invocations per user. Optionally supports centralized MCP tool injection with allowlist/denylist filtering.
The handler is mounted by a host process. Today that host is coderd, which mounts the handler at /api/v2/ai-gateway/<provider>/*. Running aibridge as a separate process is planned for the future.
Architecture
┌─────────────────┐ ┌───────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ AI Client │ │ aibridge │
│ (Claude Code, │────▶│ ┌─────────────────┐ ┌─────────────┐ │
│ Cursor, etc.) │ │ │ RequestBridge │───▶│ Providers │ │
└─────────────────┘ │ │ (http.Handler) │ │ (Anthropic │ │
│ └─────────────────┘ │ OpenAI) │ │
│ └──────┬──────┘ │
│ │ │
│ ▼ │ ┌─────────────┐
│ ┌─────────────────┐ ┌─────────────┐ │ │ Upstream │
│ │ Recorder │◀───│ Interceptor │─── ───▶│ API │
│ │ (tokens, tools, │ │ (streaming/ │ │ │ (Anthropic │
│ │ prompts) │ │ blocking) │ │ │ OpenAI) │
│ └────────┬────────┘ └──────┬──────┘ │ └─────────────┘
│ │ │ │
│ ▼ ┌──────▼──────┐ │
│ ┌ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ┐ │ MCP Proxy │ │
│ │ Database │ │ (tools) │ │
│ └ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ┘ └─────────────┘ │
└───────────────────────────────────────────┘
Components
- RequestBridge: The main
http.Handlerthat routes requests to providers - Provider: Defines bridged routes (intercepted) and passthrough routes (proxied)
- Interceptor: Handles request/response processing and streaming
- Recorder: Interface for capturing usage data (tokens, prompts, tools)
- MCP Proxy (optional): Connects to MCP servers to list tool, inject them into requests, and invoke them in an inner agentic loop
Request Flow
- Client sends request to
/anthropic/v1/messagesor/openai/v1/chat/completions - Actor extraction: Request must have an actor in context (via
AsActor()). The host is responsible for authenticating the caller before invoking the handler. - Upstream call: Request forwarded to the AI provider
- Response relay: Response streamed/sent to client
- Recording: Token usage, prompts, and tool invocations recorded
With MCP enabled: Tools from configured MCP servers are centrally defined and injected into requests (prefixed bmcp_). Allowlist/denylist regex patterns control which tools are available. When the model selects an injected tool, the gateway invokes it in an inner agentic loop, and continues the conversation loop until complete.
Passthrough routes (/v1/models, /v1/messages/count_tokens) are reverse-proxied directly.
Observability
Prometheus Metrics
Create metrics with NewMetrics(prometheus.Registerer):
| Metric | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
interceptions_total |
Counter | Intercepted request count |
interceptions_inflight |
Gauge | Currently processing requests |
interceptions_duration_seconds |
Histogram | Request duration |
passthrough_total |
Counter | Non-intercepted requests forwarded to the upstream |
prompts_total |
Counter | User prompt count |
tokens_total |
Counter | Token usage (input, output, cache read/write, provider extras) |
injected_tool_invocations_total |
Counter | Injected MCP tool invocations performed by the handler |
non_injected_tool_selections_total |
Counter | Client-defined tool selections returned by the model |
circuit_breaker_state |
Gauge | Circuit breaker state per provider/endpoint (0=closed, 0.5=half, 1=open) |
circuit_breaker_trips_total |
Counter | Times the circuit breaker transitioned to open |
circuit_breaker_rejects_total |
Counter | Requests rejected due to an open circuit breaker |
Recorder Interface
Implement Recorder to persist usage data to your database:
aibridge_interceptions- request metadata (provider, model, initiator, timestamps)aibridge_token_usages- input/output and cache read/write token counts per responseaibridge_user_prompts- user promptsaibridge_tool_usages- tool invocations (injected and client-defined)aibridge_model_thoughts- model reasoning content (thinking, reasoning summaries, commentary)
type Recorder interface {
RecordInterception(ctx context.Context, req *InterceptionRecord) error
RecordInterceptionEnded(ctx context.Context, req *InterceptionRecordEnded) error
RecordTokenUsage(ctx context.Context, req *TokenUsageRecord) error
RecordPromptUsage(ctx context.Context, req *PromptUsageRecord) error
RecordToolUsage(ctx context.Context, req *ToolUsageRecord) error
RecordModelThought(ctx context.Context, req *ModelThoughtRecord) error
}
Supported Routes
Each provider instance is mounted under /api/v2/ai-gateway/<name>, where <name> is the provider's configured name. For example, with an Anthropic provider named my-anthropic, its /messages endpoint would be reachable at /api/v2/ai-gateway/my-anthropic/v1/messages.
If a name is not set, the route path defaults to the provider's type: anthropic, openai, or copilot. The table below uses the default names.
(/*) denotes a route that handles both the exact path and any subpaths. A trailing /* denotes subpaths only.
| Provider | Route | Type |
|---|---|---|
| Anthropic | /anthropic/v1/messages |
Bridged (intercepted) |
| Anthropic | /anthropic/v1/messages/count_tokens |
Passthrough |
| Anthropic | /anthropic/v1/models(/*) |
Passthrough |
| Anthropic | /anthropic/api/event_logging/* |
Passthrough |
| OpenAI | /openai/v1/chat/completions |
Bridged (intercepted) |
| OpenAI | /openai/v1/responses |
Bridged (intercepted) |
| OpenAI | /openai/v1/responses/* |
Passthrough |
| OpenAI | /openai/v1/conversations(/*) |
Passthrough |
| OpenAI | /openai/v1/models(/*) |
Passthrough |
| Copilot | /copilot/chat/completions |
Bridged (intercepted) |
| Copilot | /copilot/responses |
Bridged (intercepted) |
| Copilot | /copilot/models(/*) |
Passthrough |
| Copilot | /copilot/agents/* |
Passthrough |
| Copilot | /copilot/mcp/* |
Passthrough |
| Copilot | /copilot/.well-known/* |
Passthrough |