Provider Setup

ByteMind supports any model provider that exposes an OpenAI-compatible API, plus Anthropic and Gemini native APIs.

OpenAI

{
  "provider": {
    "type": "openai-compatible",
    "base_url": "https://api.openai.com/v1",
    "model": "gpt-4o",
    "api_key_env": "OPENAI_API_KEY"
  }
}

Anthropic

{
  "provider": {
    "type": "anthropic",
    "base_url": "https://api.anthropic.com",
    "model": "claude-sonnet-4-20250514",
    "api_key_env": "ANTHROPIC_API_KEY",
    "anthropic_version": "2023-06-01"
  }
}

Gemini

{
  "provider": {
    "type": "gemini",
    "base_url": "https://generativelanguage.googleapis.com/v1beta",
    "model": "gemini-2.5-flash",
    "api_key_env": "GEMINI_API_KEY"
  }
}

DeepSeek

{
  "provider": {
    "type": "openai-compatible",
    "base_url": "https://api.deepseek.com/v1",
    "model": "deepseek-coder",
    "api_key_env": "DEEPSEEK_API_KEY"
  }
}

Local Models (Ollama)

{
  "provider": {
    "type": "openai-compatible",
    "base_url": "http://localhost:11434/v1",
    "model": "qwen2.5-coder:7b",
    "api_key": "ollama"
  }
}

Any OpenAI-compatible endpoint works

If a service accepts POST /v1/chat/completions with standard OpenAI request/response format, it works with ByteMind. This includes Azure OpenAI, Groq, Together AI, and most self-hosted inference servers.

Using Environment Variables for API Keys

Always prefer api_key_env over a literal api_key in config files. This keeps secrets out of your source tree:

{ "provider": { "api_key_env": "MY_API_KEY_VAR" } }

export MY_API_KEY_VAR="sk-..."
bytemind chat

Custom Auth Headers

For providers that require non-standard authentication:

{
  "provider": {
    "type": "openai-compatible",
    "base_url": "https://my-internal-gateway/v1",
    "model": "gpt-4o",
    "auth_header": "X-API-Token",
    "auth_scheme": "",
    "api_key_env": "GATEWAY_TOKEN"
  }
}

Verifying the Setup

After creating your config, run:

bytemind chat

Type a simple task like say hello and verify the model responds. If it fails, check:

• base_url is reachable from your machine
• api_key or the env var is set and valid
• model ID matches what the provider offers

See Troubleshooting for common auth error solutions.

See Also

• Configuration — full config reference
• Environment Variables — runtime overrides
• Troubleshooting — auth failures and connectivity issues