AI Providers

Clanker supports multiple AI providers as backends for its natural language processing. This page explains how provider selection works and provides a summary of all available providers.

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How Provider Selection Works

Clanker determines which AI provider to use through the following priority chain:

1. CLI flag override (--ai-profile <name>): Selects a specific provider by name. This takes the highest priority.
2. Config file default (ai.default_provider): The provider named in this field is used when no CLI flag is specified.
3. Built-in fallback: If neither the flag nor the config file specifies a provider, Clanker defaults to openai.

Example

# Uses whatever is set as ai.default_provider in ~/.clanker.yaml
clanker ask "What EC2 instances are running?"

# Overrides to use Anthropic for this query
clanker ask --ai-profile anthropic "What EC2 instances are running?"

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Per-Query Key and Model Overrides

In addition to selecting a provider by name, you can override the API key and model for a specific provider on a per-query basis using dedicated flags:

Key override flags

Flag	Provider
--openai-key	openai
--anthropic-key	anthropic
--gemini-key	gemini-api
--deepseek-key	deepseek
--cohere-key	cohere
--minimax-key	minimax

Model override flags

Flag	Provider
--openai-model	openai
--anthropic-model	anthropic
--gemini-model	gemini / gemini-api
--deepseek-model	deepseek
--cohere-model	cohere
--minimax-model	minimax
--github-model	github-models

Example

# Use OpenAI with a specific model and key for this one query
clanker ask --ai-profile openai --openai-key "$MY_KEY" --openai-model gpt-4o "List my S3 buckets"

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Provider Summary

Provider	Config Key	Default Model	Auth Method
OpenAI	openai	gpt-5	API key
Anthropic	anthropic	Auto-detected (latest)	API key
Gemini API	gemini-api	gemini-2.5-flash	API key (Google AI Studio)
Gemini (Vertex AI)	gemini	gemini-2.0-flash	Application Default Credentials
AWS Bedrock	bedrock	us.anthropic.claude-sonnet-4-20250514-v1:0	AWS CLI profile
DeepSeek	deepseek	deepseek-chat	API key
Cohere	cohere	command-a-03-2025	API key
MiniMax	minimax	MiniMax-M2.5	API key
GitHub Models	github-models	openai/gpt-5.4	GitHub CLI auth token

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Choosing a Provider

Consider the following when selecting a provider:

• Cost: Providers vary significantly in pricing. DeepSeek and Gemini API tend to be more affordable for high-volume usage.
• Capability: Larger models (GPT-5, Claude Sonnet/Opus) generally produce more detailed and accurate infrastructure analysis.
• Latency: Local Bedrock endpoints may offer lower latency for AWS-heavy workloads. Gemini Flash models are optimized for speed.
• Compliance: If your organization requires that data stay within AWS, use the Bedrock provider.
• No API key needed: The gemini provider (Vertex AI) uses GCP Application Default Credentials, and github-models uses your existing gh auth token.