Build your first verified voice agent

Learn how to make your first request through Cipher's Proxy Platform and connect your voice provider. The proxy is fully OpenAI-compatible and streams responses, so you can drop it into existing integrations.

Getting started

Follow these steps to integrate Cipher with your voice agent platform

Create an API key

Sign up for Cipher and navigate to the API Keys section in the Dashboard. Here you can create a new Cipher API key or retrieve an existing one. Store it securely as an environment variable.

.env

# Add to your environment
CIPHER_API_KEY=sk_live_your_key_here

Configure your downstream model

Cipher forwards verified traffic to your preferred LLM provider and model. Click on the Proxy Sandbox tab, select your desired model from the LLM dropdown, then click Set Key in the Credentials column to add your API key for that provider (e.g., your OpenAI API key for GPT models, or Google API key for Gemini models).

Select your downstream LLM and configure credentials

Popular models include gpt-4o-mini, gpt-4o, and gemini-2.5-flash. Choose based on your latency and quality requirements. You can also configure this via the API if needed.

Configuring your Cipher Setup

Click Configure under the Actions column to customize how Cipher handles your agent's interactions. This modal lets you configure three key settings:

Compliance Mode: Specify what type of behavior you want Cipher to enforce with your data (Non Compliance Mode, HIPAA Mode, etc.) and configure it to match your requirements.
Verification Threshold: Set the confidence level at which a caller is considered "verified" by Cipher.
System Prompt: Input your agent's system prompt so Cipher can analyze it to maintain your agent's tone, behavior, and context even when it steps in to probe for verification.

Configure compliance mode, verification threshold, and system prompt

Troubleshooting

Common issues and how to resolve them

Missing stream? Ensure stream=true is passed in your request and your provider supports Server-Sent Events (SSE).

401 errors? Double-check the Authorization header format. You can use either Authorization: Bearer $CIPHER_API_KEY or the custom header x-cipher-api-key.

Phone verification not triggering? Include the X-Office-Number header with E.164 formatted numbers (e.g., +14155551212).

Next steps

Vapi Setup →

Detailed guide for integrating Cipher with Vapi assistants

ElevenLabs Setup →

Step-by-step instructions for ElevenLabs agents integration

Platform Overview →

Learn more about Cipher's proxy architecture and features

MCP Platform →

Explore Model Context Protocol integration for advanced use cases