Connect AWS AgentCore Bedrock Gateway Target to private apis within a VPC

Emanuel - yes the answer is incorrect. I've been struggling with this problem also. Most AI's, including AWS Q answer this question incorrectly. From what I can tell there are 3 ways to do this all 3 expose the endpoint in some fashion to the public internet.

1. create an external facing ALB to the same target as your internal ALB. this totally defeats the purpose of the internal ALB (it exposes your API to the public net). I have found no way to secure this other then authentication - it is truely a public endpoint.
2. Create an API Gateway using PrivateLink. Same exact problem as 1. this then exposes your API to the public internet, but like 1. you can add layers of authentication.
3. Use a Lambda function with PrivateLink access. Like 1 & 2 - the lambda endpoint is exposed to the public internet, but requires AWS SIG4 authentication.

Yes, you can integrate a private API (not accessible from the internet) with Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Gateway using its OpenAPI schema.

Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Gateway can connect to your private APIs within a VPC through interface VPC endpoints. This allows you to keep your API communications within the AWS network backbone rather than traversing the public internet, enhancing security and potentially reducing latency.

To set this up:

1. Create interface VPC endpoints to establish private connectivity between your VPC-hosted agents and the AgentCore Gateway.

2. Configure your OpenAPI target in the Gateway by providing the OpenAPI specification (either inline or via S3) that describes your private API.

3. Set up the appropriate credential provider for authentication. For a private API, you'll need to configure outbound authentication using either API Key or OAuth credentials that Gateway will use to access your OpenAPI target.

4. Ensure proper network connectivity between the Gateway and your private API through the VPC endpoint.

This approach allows you to transform your private API into an MCP-compatible tool that agents can discover and use, while maintaining the security benefits of keeping the API private within your VPC. The Gateway handles the translation between MCP and REST formats, abstracting away the complexity of protocol-level integration.
Sources
Secure ingress connectivity to Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Gateway using interface VPC endpoints | Artificial Intelligence
Introducing Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Gateway: Transforming enterprise AI agent tool development | Artificial Intelligence
Add OpenAPI targets to your gateway - Amazon Bedrock AgentCore
Core concepts for Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Gateway - Amazon Bedrock AgentCore