Chat UI documents no-login browser sessions with OpenID unconfigured. The env template warns that enabling OpenID requires login; AUTOMATIC_LOGIN=false alone is not enough. Guest inference can use the server key. No running deployment was tested.

Chat UI supports a documented no-login configuration

Rechecked September 29, 2026 for the Operator's linked repository, not the access policy of the hosted HuggingChat service.

The official OpenID guide describes browser-session identities as the default. OpenID Connect is an additional configuration. Forwarding a signed-in Hugging Face user's inference token with USE_USER_TOKEN=true is a separate authenticated mode, not a prerequisite for every visitor.

The main-branch environment template leaves OPENID_CLIENT_ID and OPENID_CONFIG empty and warns that configured OpenID requires login after the welcome modal. Therefore disabling automatic redirects alone is not a sufficient no-login configuration.

For the intended guest deployment, leave OpenID unconfigured, explicitly set AUTOMATIC_LOGIN=false and USE_USER_TOKEN=false, and supply the application's model-provider key on the server. The repository README and configuration overview document OPENAI_BASE_URL and OPENAI_API_KEY for that server-side connection. This is not a claim that arbitrary visitor BYOK is implemented.

Verification boundary: the documentation, README, environment template, and top-level hook were readable. The delegated request handler could not be retrieved. No installation was started, no anonymous generation was performed, and no guest-isolation or quota test was run. The supported configuration is documented; successful operation of a particular release still requires an actual deployment check.