diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index e41faf1..fcda39b 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -58,7 +58,7 @@ The cooperative's software is open source and lives in the [`code`](https://git.
 
 The gateway currently exposes three models (all served through Tinfoil's TEE-protected enclaves):
 
-- **DeepSeek V4 Flash** — default model, best for agentic tasks (1M context, tool calling)
+- **DeepSeek V4.1 Flash** — default model, best for agentic tasks (1M context, tool calling)
 - **GPT-OSS 120B** — lightweight fallback
 - **GLM-5.3 Flash** — fast, efficient MoE model
 
@@ -67,6 +67,25 @@ The gateway currently exposes three models (all served through Tinfoil's TEE-pro
 - **Web search** — enabled by default, backed by a self-hosted SearXNG instance (no external search API or scraper key required).
 - **File uploads (RAG)** — works out of the box via Open WebUI's bundled local embedding model (`sentence-transformers/all-MiniLM-L6-v2`), no external embedding API.
 
+### API access
+
+Members can use the co-op's models programmatically through an OpenAI-compatible API:
+
+- **Endpoint:** `https://gateway.inference.coop/v1`
+- **Auth:** a bearer API key (created in the [Member Dashboard](https://dashboard.inference.coop))
+- **Format:** standard OpenAI chat completions (`POST /v1/chat/completions`)
+
+Example:
+
+```bash
+curl https://gateway.inference.coop/v1/chat/completions \
+  -H "Authorization: Bearer sk-..." \
+  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
+  -d '{"model": "deepseek-v4-1-flash", "messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "Hello"}]}'
+```
+
+API usage draws from the **same monthly balance as chat** — there is no separate quota. The gateway is publicly reachable (member keys authenticate it), but its admin UI and API documentation are disabled; admin access is via the internal dashboard or the gateway's admin endpoints.
+
 ### Privacy
 
 Privacy is a core value. Inference now runs through [Tinfoil](https://tinfoil.sh/inference), which provides **architectural** privacy: models run inside hardware enclaves (TEEs), and request/response bodies are encrypted end-to-end with the Encrypted HTTP Body Protocol (EHBP), so even Tinfoil's own infrastructure cannot read them. This is verifiable via remote attestation — not just a policy promise.