By default every agent runs on Anthropic Claude — no key, no config. The orchestrator mounts your host ~/.claude session into each container and that's the whole setup. When you want something else — the whole fleet on Grok, a few agents on a self-hosted model, or a deliberate mix — you don't edit env files. You set it on Settings → AI Providers (/settings/ai-providers, linked from the sidebar footer), and the choice is stored server-side and resolved per agent at spawn.
The routing modes
The page has one global routing mode that decides which backend every agent uses unless you override it per agent:
| Mode | What it does | Needs |
|---|---|---|
| Anthropic | Every agent runs on Claude via the mounted ~/.claude auth. The default. | Nothing — the orchestrator's ~/.claude mount |
| Grok | Every agent runs on xAI Grok (grok-build). | A saved Grok key or a SuperGrok login — see Run on Grok |
| Ollama | Every agent runs on Ollama Cloud. | A saved Ollama Cloud key |
| Self-Hosted | Every agent runs against your own OpenAI-compatible endpoint. | A base URL with a successful Test Connection |
| Mix | Pin individual agents to specific models; everything else inherits the global default. | Whatever the pinned models need |
Anthropic, Ollama Cloud, and self-hosted models all speak the Anthropic Messages wire protocol, so they run through the same Claude Code runtime — the orchestrator just injects the endpoint and key. Only Grok speaks a different protocol and runs in its own agent image. You don't have to think about that distinction; it's just why Grok is the one mode with a separate setup page.
Mix mode shows a per-agent table mirroring the org chart, but you (the CEO) are intentionally excluded — there's no model to assign to the human seat. The Intake (Prompter) and Secretary chats are in the table.
How a route is resolved: agent > role > global
When the orchestrator spawns an agent, it picks the model by a three-rung precedence ladder, most specific first:
- Agent — a model pinned to that exact agent (set in Mix mode).
- Role — a model assigned to the agent's role.
- Global — the global mode's default.
The first rung that has an assignment wins. So in Mix mode you can pin be-dev-1 to one model, leave the rest of the backend cell on the global default, and the dispatcher resolves each one independently at spawn time. Switching the global mode clears all per-agent overrides (the panel asks you to confirm), so flip to Mix after you've chosen your baseline, not before.
Saving keys and endpoints
Three secrets live on this page, all stored Fernet-encrypted server-side and never returned by the API — the panel only ever sees a has_key / has_token boolean, so you re-enter (you can't read back) a key:
- Grok (xAI) key — only needed if you authenticate Grok with a key rather than a SuperGrok login.
- Ollama Cloud key — required before any agent can route to Ollama Cloud.
- Self-hosted endpoint — a base URL plus an optional auth token. Hit Test Connection to confirm reachability and auto-discover the model list; Refresh re-discovers it. A self-hosted assignment won't save until the connection tests clean.
The panel guards you client-side: it blocks saving a Grok / Ollama / self-hosted assignment when the matching key or connection is missing, and warns when an Ollama-routed agent has no key (see below).
Fail-soft: misconfig falls back to Anthropic
Routing is deliberately fail-soft. A stalled spawn is worse than a wrong model, so on any of these the orchestrator silently degrades that agent to Anthropic Claude rather than refusing to start it:
- no assignment found for the agent, its role, or the global default;
- a self-hosted or Ollama endpoint that's unreachable (the orchestrator probes
/api/tagsbefore committing to it); - a stored key or token that fails to decrypt.
Because the fallback is silent, an agent you think is on your self-hosted model may actually be running on Claude — for example if the endpoint went unreachable after you tested it. The fallback is logged in the orchestrator (docker compose logs orchestrator shows the warning). If you're routing away from Anthropic, watch the per-model breakdown on the usage dashboard to confirm the traffic is landing where you intended.
The Anthropic, Grok, Ollama Cloud, and self-hosted provider rows are created by alembic upgrade head, which the stack runs for you on boot. The AI Providers page only sets keys, mode, and assignments — it never creates providers. If you skipped migrations you'll see "provider not seeded" errors here.
Next
- Run on Grok — the SuperGrok path end to end.
- What keeps a run alive — crash retry and provider park-and-resume.
- The same guardrails apply on every backend — see how agents are sandboxed.