> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://seekspeed.gitbook.io/seekspeed-docs/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://seekspeed.gitbook.io/seekspeed-docs/spec-lab/honesty-gate.md).

# Honesty Gate

The Spec Lab refuses to run a speculative-decoding job against a hosted closed-weight provider, full stop.

If the selected connector's `baseUrl` matches a known closed provider (`api.openai.com`, `api.anthropic.com`, `openrouter.ai`, etc.), the **Run** button is replaced with a banner:

> **Speculative decoding cannot be measured on closed providers.** You're routing through a hosted API. The provider may or may not run speculative decoding internally — but you can't measure its acceptance rate, control the draft model, or A/B against a non-speculative baseline. Switch to a self-hosted vLLM, TGI, llama.cpp, or DeepSpec endpoint to run this experiment.

The gate is enforced both client-side (button is disabled) and server-side (the `runSpecBenchmark` function rejects with `403 closed_provider_disallowed`).

## Why this matters

The single most common dishonest claim in agent performance work is "we got 2.5× speedup on `gpt-4o`". You cannot. The OpenAI inference stack is a closed black box; whatever speculative decoding it runs internally is already in the latency number you measured. Layering a SeekSpeed "spec lab run" on top of it would just A/B two identical hosted calls and call the variance a speedup.

The honesty gate is one line of UX. It's also the difference between a benchmark tool and a marketing tool.


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