Pick a provider

Anton works with any of five provider options. You choose one during onboarding (the first time you run anton), and you can switch at any time with /llm in chat or by running anton setup. All keys are persisted to ~/.anton/.env, so they carry across sessions and workspaces.

At a glance

Option	Default model	Web search / fetch	Best for
Minds-Enterprise-Cloud (mdb.ai) — recommended	_reason_ / _code_ smart routing	Native passthrough, zero setup	Best overall experience
Minds-Enterprise-Server	Smart routing on your server	Depends on server	Self-hosted deployments
Anthropic (bring your own key)	claude-sonnet-4-6	Native server tools	Anthropic accounts
OpenAI (bring your own key)	gpt-5.4	Native via Responses API	OpenAI accounts
Google Gemini (bring your own key)	gemini-3-flash-preview	Needs anton setup-search	Gemini accounts
Custom OpenAI-compatible	You choose	Needs anton setup-search	Ollama, vLLM, Together, Groq, LM Studio, Azure, …

Option 1 — Minds-Enterprise-Cloud (recommended)

mdb.ai is the default and recommended choice. Anton uses two virtual models — _reason_ for planning and _code_ for coding — and Minds routes each request to the best underlying model:

• Smart model routing
• Faster responses
• Cost optimized
• Secure data connectors
• Native web search and fetch passthrough — no extra setup

During onboarding, if you don't have an mdb.ai API key yet, Anton opens the signup page for you — it takes a few seconds.

Option 2 — Minds-Enterprise-Server (self-hosted)

The same Minds experience against your own server. Onboarding asks for your server URL and API key, tests the connection, and (with your explicit confirmation) can proceed without SSL verification for servers with self-signed certificates.

Option 3 — Bring your own key

Choosing "Bring your own key" presents four sub-options. In each case Anton validates the key with a quick probe call before saving it.

Anthropic

Enter your Anthropic API key and a model (default: claude-sonnet-4-6). Web search and web fetch run as Anthropic native server tools, billed on your Anthropic key — no extra setup.

OpenAI

Enter your OpenAI API key and a model (default: gpt-5.4). Web search runs natively through the OpenAI Responses API; fetching is covered by the same capability.

Google Gemini

Anton talks to Gemini through Google's OpenAI-compatible endpoint. Get a key at aistudio.google.com/apikey; the default model is gemini-3-flash-preview. Because this is a generic OpenAI-compatible endpoint, web search needs an external provider — run anton setup-search to configure Exa.ai or Brave Search.

Custom OpenAI-compatible endpoint

Works with Ollama, vLLM, Together, Groq, LM Studio, Azure, or any OpenAI-compatible API. You provide:

• Base URL — e.g. http://localhost:11434/v1 for Ollama
• API key — press Enter to skip if your endpoint doesn't need one
• Model name
• API version — leave blank for standard endpoints; required for Azure

After setup, Anton offers to configure a web search provider (Exa.ai or Brave Search) since generic endpoints don't expose search natively. You can run that step any time with anton setup-search — see Search providers.

Web search and fetch by provider

Anton exposes two web tools to the agent — web_search and web_fetch — both on by default. How they execute depends on your provider:

Provider	web_search	web_fetch	Setup
Anthropic BYOK	Anthropic native server tool	Anthropic native server tool	None — billed on your Anthropic key
OpenAI BYOK	OpenAI Responses API native	covered by web_search	None — billed on your OpenAI key
Minds-Enterprise-Cloud (mdb.ai)	mdb.ai passthrough	mdb.ai passthrough	None — billed on your Minds key
Generic OpenAI-compatible (Together, Groq, Ollama, vLLM, …)	Exa.ai or Brave (you choose at setup)	stdlib HTTP GET (no key)	Run anton setup-search once

To opt out, set ANTON_WEB_SEARCH_ENABLED=false and/or ANTON_WEB_FETCH_ENABLED=false in your config. See Web search and Web fetch.

Switching providers later

• In chat: type /llm to change provider, model, or API key.
• From the terminal: run anton setup to re-run the full provider selection.

Both flows validate the new configuration before saving it to ~/.anton/.env.