Provider Setup

Provider setup is an inventory, not a pledge of allegiance. Add the engines already available to you, describe their real trust boundaries, and choose among them per tool or per run.

Discover Before Installing More Software

cmdforge providers discover
cmdforge providers discover --add
cmdforge providers check

CmdForge looks for supported CLIs on PATH, known API-key environment variables, and models reported by a local Ollama installation. It never prints the values of discovered API keys.

Use the Desktop Installer

1. Launch cmdforge.
2. Open Providers in the sidebar.
3. Choose Install Provider… to see available and already installed groups.
4. Review the external installation instructions, then select the provider variants to add.
5. Return to the Providers page and test the saved entry.

The GUI and CLI edit the same ~/.cmdforge/providers.yaml file.

Use the Terminal Installer

cmdforge providers install

The interactive guide detects what is already present, shows installation instructions for what is missing, and offers maintained provider variants. Since external CLIs change independently, read the displayed command before approving it.

A Local-First Starting Point

Ollama is a useful choice when material must stay on the computer. After installing Ollama with its official instructions and pulling a model, let CmdForge discover the exact model:

ollama list
cmdforge providers discover --add
cmdforge providers list

A provider being local is a declared fact you should verify. For sensitive work, enforce it at runtime with --require-local --no-fallback.

Add an OpenAI-Compatible API

export RESEARCH_API_KEY="..."

cmdforge providers add research-api https://api.example.com/v1   --type api --model research-model   --api-key-env RESEARCH_API_KEY --locality remote   --capability text --capability structured-json   --data-policy public

Only the environment variable name is stored. Keep the key in your normal credential mechanism, not in providers.yaml.

Test and Inspect

cmdforge providers test research-api
cmdforge providers list
cmdforge providers for-tools summarize classify-text

Testing confirms availability and a basic response. It does not prove privacy, semantic quality, or model identity. Record those facts explicitly and use the strict controls in Provider Policy and Provenance.