Model Providers

Eliza supports 18 inference backends. Five are bundled with every release (OpenAI, OpenRouter, Groq, Ollama, and Eliza Cloud); the remaining providers are on demand — they auto-install from the plugin registry when their API key or config is detected. The active backend is selected through canonical runtime routing on the connected server, not by ad hoc env toggles in the client.

Provider Reference

The table below is the complete list of supported provider plugins, sourced from Eliza's provider catalog.

How Provider Selection Works

Eliza uses a server-target-first model:

1. Choose which server to use: local, Eliza Cloud, or a remote backend.
2. Link any accounts the server may need, such as Eliza Cloud or OpenAI.
3. Select the active inference route for llmText.

The connected server then resolves the effective provider from canonical runtime config:

• deploymentTarget decides where the server runs
• linkedAccounts decides which accounts are available
• serviceRouting.llmText decides who handles inference

Provider plugins are still auto-enabled from the server environment when appropriate, but the client-facing source of truth is the server's runtime routing config, not a raw environment variable on its own.

Auto-enable flow

1. On startup, Eliza scans your environment variables (from ~/.eliza/.env, shell environment, or eliza.json).
2. If a recognized API key is found (e.g., ANTHROPIC_API_KEY), the corresponding provider plugin is automatically added to the plugin allowlist.
3. The plugin is installed on demand if not already present (installed to ~/.eliza/plugins/installed/).
4. The provider becomes available for model selection.

Explicit plugin configuration

You can also enable providers manually in ~/.eliza/eliza.json under the plugins key:

{
  plugins: {
    allow: ["anthropic", "openai", "ollama"],
  },
}

To disable an auto-enabled provider, set its entry to enabled: false:

{
  plugins: {
    entries: {
      anthropic: { enabled: false },
    },
  },
}

Auth profiles

Providers can also be activated through auth profiles in your config:

{
  auth: {
    profiles: {
      main: {
        provider: "anthropic",
      },
      backup: {
        provider: "openrouter",
      },
    },
  },
}

Setting Up Providers

Option 1: Environment file (recommended)

Create or edit ~/.eliza/.env:

# Primary provider
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-ant-api03-...

# Additional providers
OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-...
OPENROUTER_API_KEY=sk-or-v1-...
GROQ_API_KEY=gsk_...

Option 2: Config file

Add keys directly in ~/.eliza/eliza.json:

{
  env: {
    ANTHROPIC_API_KEY: "<ANTHROPIC_API_KEY>",
    OPENAI_API_KEY: "<OPENAI_API_KEY>",
  },
}

Option 3: Interactive setup

eliza configure

This walks you through setting common environment variables including your preferred model provider.

CLI Commands

eliza models             # list configured model providers and their status
eliza configure          # show provider status and env variable guide (read-only)

Setting the default model

In ~/.eliza/eliza.json, specify the model using provider/model format:

{
  agents: {
    defaults: {
      model: {
        primary: "anthropic/claude-sonnet-4.6",
      },
    },
  },
}

Or switch mid-session using the /model chat command:

/model openai/gpt-5

Model Fallbacks

If your primary model is unavailable (rate limit, outage, billing issue), Eliza automatically tries the next option in the list. This keeps the agent responsive even when a single provider has problems.

{
  agents: {
    defaults: {
      model: {
        primary: "anthropic/claude-sonnet-4.6",
        fallbacks: [
          "openai/gpt-5",
          "groq/openai/gpt-oss-120b",
        ],
      },
    },
  },
}

Fallbacks are tried in order. Each provider in the fallback chain must have its API key configured.

Using Multiple Providers

You can have multiple providers active simultaneously. Every provider whose API key is detected will be auto-enabled and available for selection.

A common setup:

# ~/.eliza/.env

# Primary — high-quality reasoning
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-ant-api03-...

# Fast inference for simple tasks
GROQ_API_KEY=gsk_...

# Fallback — wide model selection
OPENROUTER_API_KEY=sk-or-v1-...

# Local — offline / privacy-sensitive work
OLLAMA_API_ENDPOINT=http://127.0.0.1:11434

With this setup, all four providers are available. You can set different models for different purposes:

{
  agents: {
    defaults: {
      model: {
        primary: "anthropic/claude-sonnet-4.6",
        fallbacks: ["openrouter/anthropic/claude-sonnet-4.6"],
      },
      imageModel: {
        primary: "openai/gpt-5",
      },
    },
  },
}

Local Models with Ollama

Ollama lets you run models locally with no API key and full privacy. It does not require an API key — just a running Ollama server. For fully embedded local inference without any server, see the local models guide.

Setup

Ollama auto-enables as soon as OLLAMA_API_ENDPOINT (or the alias OLLAMA_BASE_URL) is set. If you are running Ollama on the default port locally, just set:

OLLAMA_API_ENDPOINT=http://127.0.0.1:11434

To verify Ollama is running and reachable:

curl http://127.0.0.1:11434/api/tags

For remote Ollama instances, point to your server's address instead.

Env Variable Quick Reference

Every env variable that triggers auto-enable, grouped by provider: