The outcome
Select a licensed, pinned model with measured quality, safety, latency, cost, and a tested fallback.
Step by step
A workflow you can repeat.
- 01
Define users, task, languages, data class, success and failure metrics, safety, schema, context, latency, traffic, retention, region, license, cost, and rollback limits.
- 02
List current models and record exact IDs, capabilities, licenses, context, pricing, rate limits, supported parameters, lifecycle state, and dedicated-endpoint options.
- 03
Create a project-scoped key, keep it server-side, and run a frozen representative set with equal prompts, bounded output, captured usage, errors, latency, and repeat trials.
- 04
Score correctness, grounding, safety, refusals, bias, schema validity, tail latency, failure rate, privacy path, and task cost, investigating item-level regressions.
- 05
Pin the winner and fallback, add rate and budget controls, canary the integration, monitor model changes, and rerun the benchmark before any migration.
Working standard
What good use looks like.
- Record exact model IDs and licenses.
- Measure task cost and tail latency.
- Never silently switch models.
Official references