Setting Up AI Providers

CmdForge is the brain, but AI providers are the muscle. Before your tools can do anything smart, you need at least one provider configured. The good news? CmdForge makes provider setup painless—whether you prefer a graphical wizard or the command line.

Visual Installer (GUI)

The friendliest way to install providers—a point-and-click wizard right in the desktop app:

1. Launch CmdForge: cmdforge
2. Go to Tools → Install AI Provider... (or click "Install Provider..." on the Providers page)
3. Select a provider from the list
4. Click Install Selected
5. Watch the installation progress in real-time
6. Choose which model variants to add

After installation, the wizard offers to add provider variants (like claude-haiku, claude-opus) to your configuration automatically.

Command-Line Installer

Prefer the terminal? Use the interactive CLI installer:

cmdforge providers install

You'll see a menu of available provider groups:

============================================================
CmdForge Provider Installation Guide
============================================================

Available AI Provider Groups:

  1. OpenCode
     Cost: FREE tier available (4 models)
     Models: opencode-pickle, opencode-deepseek, opencode-claude, ...

  2. Claude (Anthropic)
     Cost: Pay per token
     Models: claude-haiku, claude-sonnet, claude-opus

  3. Ollama (Local)
     Cost: FREE (runs on your machine)
     Models: ollama-llama, ollama-mistral, ollama-codellama

  4. OpenAI
     Cost: Pay per token
     Models: openai-gpt4, openai-gpt35

  0. Cancel

Select a provider to install (1-4, or 0 to cancel):

Select a provider, and CmdForge will:

1. Show you the installation command
2. Offer to run it for you
3. Guide you through any post-install setup

Choosing a Provider

Testing Your Setup

After installation, verify everything works:

# Test a specific provider
cmdforge providers test opencode-pickle

# The test sends a simple prompt and shows the response
# You should see something like:
# Testing provider: opencode-pickle
# Sending test prompt...
# ✓ Provider responded successfully!
# Response: "Hello! I'm working correctly."

Viewing Configured Providers

# List all providers and their status
cmdforge providers list

Output:

Configured providers:

  NAME              COMMAND                     STATUS
  opencode-pickle   opencode -m pickle          ✓ Available
  claude-haiku      claude -m haiku -p          ✓ Available
  ollama-llama      ollama run llama2           ✗ Not found
  mock              echo '[MOCK]'               ✓ Available

4 providers configured, 3 available

Manually Adding Providers

Need a custom provider? Add it manually:

# Add a new provider
cmdforge providers add my-provider "my-ai-cli --prompt"

# Add with description
cmdforge providers add my-provider "my-ai-cli --prompt" --description "My custom AI"

Or edit ~/.cmdforge/providers.yaml directly:

providers:
  - name: my-provider
    command: "my-ai-cli --prompt"
    description: "My custom AI provider"

Removing Providers

# Remove a provider you no longer use
cmdforge providers remove old-provider

Using Multiple Providers

You can have many providers configured and choose per-tool or per-run:

# Use the tool's default provider
cat file.txt | summarize

# Override for this run
cat file.txt | summarize --provider ollama-llama

# Use a fast provider for quick tasks
cat file.txt | summarize --provider opencode-pickle

# Use a powerful provider for complex tasks
cat file.txt | summarize --provider claude-opus

The Mock Provider

CmdForge includes a built-in mock provider for testing without API calls:

# Test your tool without using real AI
cat file.txt | summarize --provider mock

This returns a placeholder response, perfect for:

• Testing tool configuration
• Debugging variable flow
• CI/CD pipelines
• Saving money during development

Next Steps

• Deep dive into provider configuration
• Create your first tool
• Test your tools with mock providers