Arch is an intelligent [Layer 7](https://www.cloudflare.com/learning/ddos/what-is-layer-7/) gateway designed to protect, observe, and personalize LLM applications (agents, assistants, co-pilots) with your APIs.
Engineered with purpose-built LLMs, Arch handles the critical but undifferentiated tasks related to the handling and processing of prompts, including detecting and rejecting [jailbreak](https://github.com/verazuo/jailbreak_llms) attempts, intelligently calling "backend" APIs to fulfill the user's request represented in a prompt, routing to and offering disaster recovery between upstream LLMs, and managing the observability of prompts and LLM interactions in a centralized way.
>Prompts are nuanced and opaque user requests, which require the same capabilities as traditional HTTP requests including secure handling, intelligent routing, robust observability, and integration with backend (API) systems for personalization – all outside business logic.*
- Built on [Envoy](https://envoyproxy.io): Arch runs alongside application servers, and builds on top of Envoy's proven HTTP management and scalability features to handle ingress and egress traffic related to prompts and LLMs.
- Function Calling for fast Agentic and RAG apps. Engineered with purpose-built [LLMs](https://huggingface.co/collections/katanemo/arch-function-66f209a693ea8df14317ad68) to handle fast, cost-effective, and accurate prompt-based tasks like function/API calling, and parameter extraction from prompts.
- Prompt [Guard](https://huggingface.co/collections/katanemo/arch-guard-6702bdc08b889e4bce8f446d): Arch centralizes prompt guardrails to prevent jailbreak attempts and ensure safe user interactions without writing a single line of code.
- Standards-based Observability: Arch uses the W3C Trace Context standard to enable complete request tracing across applications, ensuring compatibility with observability tools, and provides metrics to monitor latency, token usage, and error rates, helping optimize AI application performance.
To get in touch with us, please join our [discord server](https://discord.gg/rSRQ9fv7). We will be monitoring that actively and offering support there.
Arch's CLI allows you to manage and interact with the Arch gateway efficiently. To install the CLI, simply run the following command:
Tip: We recommend that developers create a new Python virtual environment to isolate dependencies before installing Arch. This ensures that archgw and its dependencies do not interfere with other packages on your system.
```console
$ python -m venv venv
$ source venv/bin/activate # On Windows, use: venv\Scripts\activate
Arch is designed to support best-in class observability by supporting open standards. Please read our [docs](https://docs.archgw.com/guides/observability/observability.html) on observability for more details on tracing, metrics, and logs