AI Providers

ThreadLens uses a hybrid AI runtime. The user-visible model catalog contains catalog providers such as copilot, claude-cli, sdk, and gemini; the runtime chooses a transport for the selected catalog model.

Runtime layers

The core provider runtime runs inside the Go API process environment:

1. Copilot CLI when installed and authenticated in that environment.
2. Claude CLI when installed and authenticated in that environment.
3. Opencode CLI when installed and authenticated in that environment.
4. Anthropic SDK calls when ANTHROPIC_API_KEY is configured.
5. Gemini SDK calls when GEMINI_API_KEY is configured.

The optional external runtime is the local host CLI bridge. It can satisfy copilot, claude-cli, opencode, and opencode-go catalog model requests before direct CLI is attempted, but only when bridge policy and config allow it. sdk and gemini models never route through the bridge. The bridge is optional for self-hosted deployments as well as local Docker development.

Fallback order

Task-aware calls use the model selected in the Models view first, then this exact fallback order with duplicates skipped:

1. copilot:gpt-5-mini
2. opencode-go:deepseek-v4-flash
3. claude-cli:haiku
4. sdk:haiku
5. gemini:2.5-flash

Production and local development

Production and VPS self-host deployments do not need a bridge daemon, bridge token mount, or bridge bootstrap. They should use API keys or install and authenticate CLIs directly inside the runtime environment when CLI-backed models are desired. If an operator wants host-authenticated CLI reuse later, they can still add the bridge as an optional local transport.

Local desktop and local Docker development may use SCOUT_AI_BRIDGE_MODE=local and best-effort Docker dev bootstrap to reuse host CLI sessions. The bridge is local-only convenience infrastructure, not a managed AI route and not a separate model provider.

Provider keys versus source credentials

AI provider keys are separate from source-specific credentials. ANTHROPIC_API_KEY and GEMINI_API_KEY unlock AI workflows, while PARALLEL_API_KEY unlocks Google scouting through the configured search provider and BLUESKY_HANDLE plus BLUESKY_APP_PASSWORD unlock Bluesky scouting.

Operational guidance

Keep provider examples fake in public docs. Do not publish real provider keys, private prompts, hosted credentials, billing tokens, customer data, or account-specific quota details.

For user-facing setup guidance, see Configuration Basics and Model and Provider Configuration.