Requirements & Compatibility

Deployment types and prerequisites for using Agent Mode

Agent Mode requires network access to a supported LLM endpoint and the authentication method that endpoint expects. The endpoint can be a native cloud LLM service, the Anthropic API, or an Anthropic-compatible proxy. This page covers which deployment types support Agent Mode and what setup is needed. See Privacy & Security for provider-specific data handling.

Supported Deployments

Deployment Type	Agent Mode	Setup Required
groundcover Cloud	Yes	None
BYOC AWS	Yes	None
BYOC GCP	Yes	Enable models in Vertex AI
BYOC Azure	Yes	None (what gets provisioned)
On-premises (AWS/GCP/Azure)	Yes	Use your own Anthropic API key or compatible endpoint, or contact your account team for a native cloud provider
On-premises (other)	Yes	Use your own Anthropic API key or compatible endpoint

No cost until you use it. Agent Mode is enabled by default on groundcover Cloud and BYOC deployments once provisioning completes, and LLM inference costs are incurred only when users start using the Agent. If you use your own Anthropic API key, Anthropic bills the usage to your account. GCP BYOC requires a manual setup step because Google Cloud requires customers to explicitly approve third-party Anthropic models in Vertex AI Model Garden before they can be invoked. AWS Bedrock and Microsoft Foundry have no equivalent gate.

For on-premises deployments on AWS, GCP, or Azure, groundcover can provision the native LLM service: AWS Bedrock, Google Cloud Vertex AI, or Microsoft Foundry. You can also use a direct Anthropic API key or a custom Anthropic-compatible endpoint on any supported backend. All configurations require network access to the selected LLM provider or proxy.

Custom LLM providers

You can override the native cloud provider for an individual backend from Settings > AI & Agents > Management.

Anthropic API key

Agent Mode supports using your own Anthropic API key for inference on any backend where AI features are available. This is useful when you want usage billed through your Anthropic account or when a native cloud-provider LLM service is not available for your deployment.

Workspace administrators configure the key separately for each backend. Inference requests are sent directly to Anthropic after the key is configured. See Configuring Settings for the self-service setup and key rotation steps.

Custom Anthropic domain

Custom Anthropic Domain sends inference requests to an Anthropic-compatible endpoint using its base URL and API key. You can use LiteLLM, Bifrost, or any other proxy or gateway that implements the Anthropic Messages API and exposes the Claude models Agent Mode uses.

Your groundcover deployment must have network access to the custom endpoint. The endpoint must support streaming Anthropic Messages API responses. See Configuring Settings for setup instructions and endpoint examples.

GCP BYOC setup

GCP BYOC deployments require manually enabling the Anthropic Claude models in your project's Vertex AI Model Garden before Agent Mode will work. See Enable AI models for Agent Mode for step-by-step instructions.