Operator consoles tend to accumulate screens until nobody remembers which one owns what. nRouter's dashboard guide takes the opposite approach: it defines the console as a map, states what the home page is for, and routes every task to the guide that covers it in full.

The home page configures nothing

The dashboard home is a read-only summary of the organization. It shows recent spend alongside the applicable budget or cap, the available credit balance, recent request activity together with the number of active virtual keys, and the top models and endpoints — where traffic is going. The guide is explicit: nothing is configured on this page. Configuration changes happen in the section for that task, and the home page links to each one.

The task map

Nine rows cover the operator's jobs. Quick Start for the first API call. API Key Management for creating and managing virtual keys. The Playground for testing a model interactively. Observability & Logs for inspecting a request or trace. Router Settings for the Direct-versus-auto choice and fallbacks. Budget Controls for spend limits. Analytics & Reports for usage and spend breakdowns. Billing & Credits for credits and invoices. Guardrails for content-safety rules.

Direct or nrouter/auto

Routing is configured under the organization's router-settings path, and the model string in the request selects the behaviour. With Direct, you name the model and nRouter never swaps it: a different model answers only through a fallback you configured yourself, and only when the provider cannot take the request. With nrouter/auto, the gateway chooses an eligible model from the organization's candidates by the preference saved on the auto tab — Best for the task (the default) or Lowest cost — and the x-nr-model header names the model that answered.

The fallback triggers are enumerated: an upstream 429, 503, or Anthropic 529; a 401 or 404 from a misconfigured provider deployment; a connection that never opened; or a provider that sends no first byte in time.

Keys, caps, and roles

A virtual key's secret is shown exactly once, at creation; afterwards the dashboard displays only the key's name and last four characters. A lost secret is handled procedurally: create a replacement key, move traffic to it, then revoke the old one. When a key reaches its hard spending cap, subsequent requests return HTTP 402 until the cap is raised or the budget window resets; a soft threshold blocks nothing and only adds an x-nr-budget-warning header to responses. Some controls are limited to authorized roles — if a page or setting is missing, the guide directs you to the organization's Owner or an Org Admin. Finally, the search and command menu (Cmd+K on Mac, Ctrl+K on Windows and Linux) jumps to any page in the console.

Full guide: https://nrouter.ai/docs/guides/dashboard