# Understudy Labs

**Canonical:** https://apis.io/providers/understudy-labs/  
**Website:** https://understudylabs.com  
**APIs profiled:** 12

Understudy Labs (YC S26) is an LLM gateway and model-optimization platform that helps teams move repeated production LLM workloads onto open-weight models they own. The Understudy gateway is a drop-in replacement for the Anthropic and OpenAI API endpoints that captures request/response traces by project and workload, routes measured slices of traffic to managed open models, and falls back safely. A REST control plane manages keys, projects, workloads, routing, captures, evaluation cohorts, and reporting, while the MIT-licensed understudy-agent-tools repo ships a CLI, a coding-agent skill library, a local MCP server, and Understudy Desktop with a documented loopback OpenAPI 3.1 contract.

## Kin Score — 47.4 / 100 (developing)

Scored 2026-08-20 under rubric 0.12.0. Trend: flat (+0.0 from 47.4).

| Facet | Score |
|---|---|
| Discoverability | 92.6 |
| Contract Quality | 49.1 |
| Governance | 30.3 |
| Contract Governance | 30.3 |
| Operational Transparency | 18.4 |
| Developer Ergonomics | 71.4 |
| Commercial Clarity | 27.6 |
| Access Clarity | 27.6 |

## Agent readiness — 39.9 (agent-ready)

| Dimension | Value |
|---|---|
| Spec Presence | yes |
| Agentic Access | derived |
| Reversibility Documented | documented |
| MCP Server | documented |
| Auth Clarity | yes |
| Idempotency | no |
| Error Semantics | documented |
| OpenAPI Examples | no |
| Rate Limit Signal | no |
| Event Surface Described | no |
| Agent Skills | yes |
| Well Known Catalog | no |
| Consent Identity | no |
| Agent Card | no |
| Dry Run Mode | no |

## Access

Self-serve signup — onboarding: self-serve, pricing: unknown, trial: no (confidence: medium).

## APIs (12)

- **Understudy Gateway API** — Anthropic- and OpenAI-compatible LLM proxy at api.understudylabs.com. POST /v1/messages (Anthropic Messages), POST /v1/chat/completions (OpenAI Chat Completions), POST /v1/messa...
- **Understudy Control Plane API** — REST surface behind the dashboard and CLI, served from the gateway host under /admin/v1 and /customer/v1, org-scoped and authenticated with sk_* bearer keys. Covers API key mint...
- **Understudy Labs Capabilities API** — The Capabilities API from Understudy Labs — 1 operation(s) for capabilities.
- **Understudy Labs Conversations API** — The Conversations API from Understudy Labs — 1 operation(s) for conversations.
- **Understudy Labs Downloads API** — The Downloads API from Understudy Labs — 3 operation(s) for downloads.
- **Understudy Labs Feedback API** — The Feedback API from Understudy Labs — 1 operation(s) for feedback.
- **Understudy Labs Metrics API** — The Metrics API from Understudy Labs — 1 operation(s) for metrics.
- **Understudy Labs Models API** — The Models API from Understudy Labs — 2 operation(s) for models.
- **Understudy Labs Residency API** — The Residency API from Understudy Labs — 6 operation(s) for residency.
- **Understudy Labs Runs API** — The Runs API from Understudy Labs — 2 operation(s) for runs.
- **Understudy Labs Status API** — The Status API from Understudy Labs — 1 operation(s) for status.
- **Understudy Labs Supervision API** — The Supervision API from Understudy Labs — 1 operation(s) for supervision.

## MCP servers (1)

- **Understudy Labs MCP Server**

## Agentic access (1)

- **Understudy Labs Agentic Access** — 20 operations · 10 acting · 1 human-in-the-loop

## Security (2)

- **Understudy Labs Authentication** — apiKey/http · 5 schemes
- **Understudy Labs Domain Security** — TLSv1.3 · HSTS · DMARC

## Tags

Artificial Intelligence, LLM Gateway, Machine-Learning, Open-Source, Model Routing, Evaluations, Fine-Tuning, AI Infrastructure, Developer Tools

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Profiled by [API Evangelist](https://apievangelist.com) and published on [APIs.io](https://apis.io/providers/understudy-labs/). Scores are computed from the provider's own public artifacts under a published rubric.