Core concepts
Products, plans, subscribers, meters, gateways, and portals.
Products, plans, subscribers, meters, gateways, and portals.
Farther Shore has a small set of concepts that show up everywhere in the builder console, developer portal, gateway, and billing system.
A product is the commercial wrapper around an API. It includes the product name, portal identity, upstream routing, billing strategy, plans, meters, and runtime rules.
Think of a product as the thing a subscriber buys.
The upstream is the API you already run. Farther Shore does not replace it. The gateway forwards allowed subscriber requests to the upstream after authentication and enforcement pass.
A meter is a unit of usage. Common meters include:
| Meter | Common use |
|---|---|
requests | Count each API call. |
input_tokens | Track prompt or input tokens for AI APIs. |
output_tokens | Track completion or output tokens. |
dollars | Track provider cost or pass-through cost. |
credits | Spend prepaid balance. |
| custom units | Track product-specific work, such as images, reports, seats, or documents. |
Meters are the bridge between product behavior and billing.
A plan defines what a subscriber receives and what they pay. A plan can include recurring fees, included usage, hard limits, overage behavior, or credit requirements.
A subscriber is a customer account using a product. Subscribers choose plans, receive API keys, and generate usage.
An API key identifies a subscriber request. The gateway uses the key to resolve the subscriber, subscription, and compiled plan before deciding whether to forward traffic.
The gateway is the edge enforcement layer. It protects live products, applies runtime policy, routes traffic to upstream APIs, and emits usage events.
The developer portal is the subscriber-facing surface for a product. It exposes product docs, pricing, subscription flows, and API key management.
Runtime policy is the compiled version of a product's commercial rules. Core turns products, plans, subscriptions, limits, and credentials into artifacts the gateway can enforce quickly.
Platform docs explain Farther Shore. Product docs explain a specific API product.
Product docs are usually maintained in the product repository and published to the managed docs bucket. Platform docs are maintained in this repository and served on the main docs hostname.