---
id: nlu-only-server
sidebar_label: NLU-Only Server
title: NLU-Only Server
description: Read about connecting to a Rasa NLU-only server using the HTTP API.
abstract: You can run an NLU-only server and use the HTTP API to connect to it.
---


## Connecting to an NLU server

You can connect a [Rasa NLU-only server](./nlu-only.mdx#running-an-nlu-server) to a separately running Rasa dialogue management only server
by adding the connection details to the dialogue management server's endpoint configuration file:

```yaml title="endpoints.yml"
nlu:
    url: "http://<your nlu host>:<your nlu port>"
    token: <token>  # [optional]
    token_name: <name of the token> # [optional] (default: token)
```

The `token` and `token_name` refer to optional [authentication parameters](./http-api.mdx#token-based-auth).

The dialogue management server should serve a model that does not include an NLU model.
To obtain a dialogue management only model, train a model with `rasa train core` or use 
`rasa train` but exclude all NLU data.

When the dialogue management server receives a message, it will [send a request](https://rasa.com/docs/rasa/pages/http-api#operation/parseModelMessage) to 
`http://<your nlu host>:<your nlu port>/model/parse` and use the parsing information returned.

:::note endpoint configuration
The endpoint configuration for the dialogue management server will include an `nlu` endpoint that refers to your NLU only server. Therefore you should **use a separate endpoint configuration file** for the NLU server, excluding the `nlu` endpoint.
:::

If you are implementing a custom NLU server (i.e. not Rasa NLU), your server should provide a `/model/parse` endpoint that responds to requests in the same 
format as a Rasa NLU server does.
