Phala Cloud Documentation — Private AI on TEE

Pi speaks Chat Completions. Private AI Proxy configures it automatically.

With Private AI Proxy

Install Private AI Proxy, choose a Phala profile, sign in, and turn on Protected.
On the Agents screen, connect Pi.
Start pi.

The app writes the provider into Pi’s settings with an agent-scoped token for its local API, and restores the previous settings when you disconnect or stop Protected. From the CLI, the same connection is:

pap agents connect pi

Without the Proxy

Create a key under Private AI → API Keys in the Phala dashboard. Export your Phala API key, then add a custom provider to ~/.pi/agent/models.json:

export PHALA_AI_API_KEY="YOUR_PHALA_API_KEY"

~/.pi/agent/models.json

{
  "providers": {
    "phala": {
      "baseUrl": "https://inference.phala.com/v1",
      "api": "openai-completions",
      "apiKey": "$PHALA_AI_API_KEY",
      "models": [{
        "id": "z-ai/glm-5.3",
        "contextWindow": 1048576,
        "maxTokens": 1048576
      }]
    }
  }
}

Start pi, run /model, and select the model under phala. Opening /model reloads the file; press Ctrl+S on the model to save it as the default. The key is read from the process environment. This path does not verify attestation locally; use Private AI Proxy or the TypeScript ACI Verifier. Every model on this endpoint runs in a TEE.

Check the Connection

Run /model in Pi, confirm the provider and model, then send a short prompt. With the Proxy, the provider points at http://127.0.0.1:4180/v1; without it, at https://inference.phala.com/v1.

Troubleshooting

Symptom	Check
Pi ignores the Proxy	Confirm Connected in the app and that Protected is on, then restart `pi`.
The custom model is absent from `/model`	Check `providers.phala` in `~/.pi/agent/models.json` and export `PHALA_AI_API_KEY` in Pi’s shell.
Authentication fails	Check for a stale `phala` credential in `auth.json`; stored credentials take precedence over `models.json`.

​With Private AI Proxy

​Without the Proxy

​Check the Connection

​Troubleshooting

​Related

With Private AI Proxy

Without the Proxy

Check the Connection

Troubleshooting

Related