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How Z.AI works

Z.AI (developed by Zhipu AI) serves the GLM family of models. It’s one of the few major providers offering a flat-rate subscription for API access: the GLM Coding Plan bundles model usage at a fixed monthly price, with rate limits applied over 5-hour and weekly windows instead of per-token billing. For higher-volume or variable workloads, Z.AI also offers pay-per-token access to the same models on its standard Developer API. Both paths expose an OpenAI-compatible endpoint, so Kodus talks to them via the OpenAI Compatible provider (or directly through the curated GLM 5.1 card in BYOK).

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Plans at a glance

Pricing and quotas change regularly. Always confirm current numbers at z.ai/subscribe and docs.z.ai before choosing a tier.

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GLM Coding Plan (subscription)

TierPrice (monthly equivalent)Approximate API-value equivalentConcurrency
Lite~$18/mo (billed quarterly)~15× the monthly fee~1 concurrent
Pro~$30/mo (billed quarterly)~20× the monthly fee~1 concurrent
Max~$80/mo (billed quarterly)~30× the monthly feeup to 30 concurrent
  • Quotas reset on a rolling 5-hour window and a weekly window — plan around the ceiling, not a monthly cap.
  • Coverage includes GLM-5.1, GLM-5-Turbo, GLM-5, GLM-4.5, and GLM-4.5-Air.
  • Dedicated endpoint: https://api.z.ai/api/coding/paas/v4 — Coding Plan keys only work here.

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Pay-per-token Developer API

ModelPricing (1M input / output tokens)Context Window
GLM-5.1 recommended0.95/0.95 / 3.15~200k tokens
GLM-50.72/0.72 / 2.30~131k tokens
GLM-4.50.60/0.60 / 2.20~128k tokens
GLM-4.5-Airlower tier, optimized for routing~128k tokens
Standard endpoint: https://api.z.ai/api/paas/v4/ (OpenAI-compatible).

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Creating an API Key

A Z.AI account is required to create an API key.
  1. Sign in at z.ai.
  2. Purchase a GLM Coding Plan tier at z.ai/subscribe.
  3. Open the key management page for your subscription and create a Coding Plan key.
  4. Copy the key — you will not be able to see it again.
Coding Plan keys are tied to the /api/coding/paas/v4 endpoint. They will return 401 if sent against the standard /api/paas/v4/ endpoint.

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Configure Z.AI in Kodus

The primary flow is BYOK on Kodus Cloud — the curated GLM 5.1 card handles the endpoint swap for you. Self-hosted users who prefer fixing the provider at the process level can use environment variables instead.
1

Open BYOK and pick GLM 5.1

Go to app.kodus.io/organization/byok and click the GLM 5.1 card in the Main model section.
2

Select your plan

The card expands with a Plan selector. Pick:The base URL and “Get a key” link update automatically to match your plan.
3

Paste your API key

Just the key — nothing else to configure. For Coding Plan users, Kodus pre-fills maxConcurrentRequests=1 in Advanced settings, which matches Lite/Pro tier limits. Bump this up to 30 if you’re on Max.
4

Test & save

Click Test & save. Kodus probes the endpoint with a cheap metadata call and persists the config on success. 401 means the key doesn’t match the selected plan’s endpoint; 404 means the base URL is wrong.

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Tuning reasoning (optional)

The curated GLM 5.1 card pre-fills Thinking: Medium, which for OpenAI-compatible providers emits thinking: { type: "enabled" }. That’s fine for most workloads. Two cases to override:
  • Force a specific token budget — switch Thinking to Custom under Advanced settings and paste: 
    {
  "thinking": { "type": "enabled", "budget_tokens": 20000 }
}
  • Disable thinking — for fastest/cheapest reviews on small PRs: 
    {
  "thinking": { "type": "disabled" }
}
No namespace wrapping needed — Kodus auto-wraps under openaiCompatible (the active provider) before sending. See the main BYOK doc → Custom JSON override for details.

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Tuning concurrency

  • Coding Plan Lite / Pro: keep the pre-filled maxConcurrentRequests=1. Going higher returns 429 Too much concurrency.
  • Coding Plan Max: raise to 5 first, up to 30 if you don’t see 429s. Max tier allows up to 30 concurrent.
  • Developer API: start empty (no cap). Drop to 5 if you see rate-limit errors, then tune up.
Configure GLM 5.1 as your Main model and keep an OpenAI or Anthropic key as Fallback so that reviews keep running when your Coding Plan 5-hour window is exhausted. Kodus fails over automatically.

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Option 2 — Manual configuration

If you need a GLM variant not in the curated catalog (e.g. GLM-5 or GLM-4.5), click Configure manually at the bottom of the catalog and fill:
FieldValue
ProviderOpenAI Compatible
Base URLhttps://api.z.ai/api/coding/paas/v4 (Coding Plan)
https://api.z.ai/api/paas/v4/ (Developer API)
Modelglm-5.1, glm-5, glm-5-turbo, glm-4.5, glm-4.5-air
API Keyyour Z.AI key (matching the base URL above)
Max Concurrent Requests1 on Lite/Pro Coding Plan; up to 30 on Max; leave empty on Developer API

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Option 3 — Self-hosted (environment variables)

If you run Kodus in Fixed Mode (single global provider, no per-org BYOK), configure Z.AI in the .env of your API + worker containers: 
# Z.AI configuration (Fixed Mode)
API_LLM_PROVIDER_MODEL="glm-5.1"                                  # any GLM model you have access to
API_OPENAI_FORCE_BASE_URL="https://api.z.ai/api/coding/paas/v4"   # use /api/paas/v4/ for pay-per-token
API_OPEN_AI_API_KEY="your-z-ai-api-key"
This path is only needed for self-hosted Kodus installs that deliberately disable BYOK. If BYOK is enabled on your self-hosted instance, prefer Option 1 — the curated card handles the endpoint logic for you.
Restart the API and worker containers after editing .env, then verify the integration: 
docker-compose logs api worker | grep -iE "z\.ai|glm"
For the full self-hosted setup (domains, security keys, database, webhooks, reverse proxy), follow the generic VM deployment guide and only swap the LLM block for the one above.

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Choosing between the Coding Plan and pay-per-token

  • Pick the Coding Plan when you have a predictable team of reviewers and want a flat monthly cost. The 5-hour and weekly quotas translate to roughly 15–30× the subscription fee in equivalent API spend.
  • Pick pay-per-token when your traffic is bursty, when you need occasional access to the largest context windows, or when you want cost to scale linearly with PR volume.
  • Pair them: use the Coding Plan as Main and a Developer API key (or an entirely different provider) as Fallback to cover bursts that exhaust your subscription window.

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Troubleshooting

  • Coding Plan keys only work on /api/coding/paas/v4. Developer API keys only work on /api/paas/v4/.
  • In the curated card, confirm the Plan selector matches the key type.
  • In manual mode, confirm the Base URL matches the key origin.
  • Lite and Pro Coding Plan tiers typically allow only 1 concurrent request. Kodus pre-fills this for you; raise it only on Max.
  • Lower Max concurrent requests in Advanced settings if you’re still hitting 429s.
  • Quotas are enforced on a 5-hour rolling window and a weekly window. Hitting one of them returns HTTP 429.
  • Check remaining quota in the Z.AI console.
  • Options: wait for the next window, upgrade to a higher tier, or have a Developer API key configured as Fallback to cover the gap.
  • Verify the model ID matches Z.AI’s catalog (glm-5.1, glm-5-turbo, glm-5, glm-4.5, glm-4.5-air).
  • The Coding Plan currently covers only the GLM family — non-GLM model names will be rejected.
  • Confirm your server can reach api.z.ai.
  • Check the API and worker logs for the exact upstream error.
  • If you are in a region with restricted outbound traffic, route requests through a reverse proxy your infra allows.