F5 AI Guardrails insertion
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In order to insert **F5 AI Guardrails** into the protection process of our application, we will use the **Out-of-Band** architecture.

This architecture requires modifying the **Orchestrator** code. We will simplify it by using a middleware that will demonstrate the concept.

It's important to note this middleware is community-created and not supported by **F5**. It can be used for demos, POCs for quick testing, or adopted by the customer.

The repository can be found here :ext_link:`https://github.com/sorinboia/f5_ai_guardrails_connector_nginx`.

**Traffic Flow**

1. The user sends a prompt to the orchestrator.

2. The orchestrator sends the full context to the **Middleware**.

3. The **Middleware** will extract relevant data from the full context and send it to **F5 AI Guardrails** for scanning.

4. **F5 AI Guardrails** responds to the **Middleware** after scanning the data with a verdict of allow/block/redact.

5. The **Middleware** will block or redact if needed; otherwise, the request with the full context will be forwarded to the **LLM**.
   
6. The **LLM** sends back the response to the orchestrator through the **Middleware**.

7. The **Middleware** will extract relevant response data and send it to **F5 AI Guardrails** for scanning.

8. **F5 AI Guardrails** responds to the orchestrator after scanning the LLM response with a verdict of allow/block/redact.

9. The **Middleware** will block or redact if needed; otherwise, the response will be forwarded to the **Orchestrator**.

10. The orchestrator sends the LLM response to the client.



.. image:: ../pictures/middleware.PNG
   :align: center