Run locally as OSS

Every Vendo tool is also a plain OSS app. With VENDO_API_KEY unset, the SDK falls through to conventional environment variables and your tool runs exactly like any other self-hosted project. This is the right starting point while you're iterating on the code itself — no account, no managed infrastructure, no metered proxy.

When this lane is right

• You're prototyping and don't want to deploy yet.
• You're a contributor running the tool's repo locally to fix a bug or add a feature.
• You're running the tool on your own server and providing every credential yourself.

If you want a managed instance for just yourself, jump to Private deploy. If you want any tenant to be able to install your tool from the catalog, jump to Publish to the catalog.

Set conventional env vars

The SDK looks for the same env vars upstream providers document. Set whichever your tool actually calls:

# .env
OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-...
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-ant-...
TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN=12345:abcde
STRIPE_SECRET_KEY=sk_test_...

Do not set VENDO_API_KEY. Its presence is the only switch between OSS mode and Vendo mode — see Two modes.

Call the SDK normally

import vendo

openai_key = vendo.token("openai")   # returns OPENAI_API_KEY
bot_token  = vendo.token("telegram") # returns TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN

import { token } from "@vendodev/sdk";

const openaiKey = await token("openai");
const botToken  = await token("telegram");

vendo.token(slug) returns the value of the conventional env var when VENDO_API_KEY is absent. The same call returns an OAuth-refreshed managed token once you flip into Vendo mode — your application code never branches on which mode is active.

Run the tool

Whatever the tool's repo documents — python main.py, npm run dev, docker compose up, etc. There is no Vendo-specific build step in OSS mode. Vendo only enters the picture when VENDO_API_KEY is set.

What you don't get in OSS mode

• Credential storage and rotation. No credentials.vendo.run. Your tool reads env vars; you rotate them by editing .env.
• Metered third-party calls. No proxy — requests go straight to OpenAI, Anthropic, Telegram, etc. with your raw keys, billed to whichever provider account those keys belong to.
• Per-tenant isolation. You are the only "tenant." Code paths that read a tenant ID off the request still execute, but there is no second tenant they could resolve to.
• Hosted infrastructure. No subdomain, no TLS, no Cloudflare app proxy, no Railway-hosted compute. The tool runs wherever you start it.
• Webhook routing. hooks.vendo.run is part of the managed deployment chain; in OSS mode the tool needs to be publicly reachable on its own (ngrok, your own VPS, etc.).

Upgrading to Vendo mode

When you're ready for a managed instance, do not edit the code. Set VENDO_API_KEY (and, if you've moved off your own machine, deploy the same code through one of the other two lanes). The SDK detects the env var at startup and routes every call through credentials.vendo.run and the metered proxy automatically.

Next: Private deploy to ship a managed instance only you can use.