LLM Providers

LLM Providers

How to configure skene-growth with different LLM providers, including cloud APIs and local models.

Provider comparison

Setting the provider

There are three ways to configure your provider, model, and API key:

# 1. CLI flags (highest priority)
uvx skene-growth analyze . --provider gemini --model gemini-3-flash-preview --api-key "your-key"

# 2. Environment variables
export SKENE_API_KEY="your-key"
export SKENE_PROVIDER="gemini"

# 3. Config file (.skene-growth.config)
uvx skene-growth config  # Interactive setup

See Configuration for the full priority order.

OpenAI

The default provider. Get an API key at platform.openai.com/api-keys.

Any OpenAI model can be used via --model. The default is gpt-4o.

uvx skene-growth analyze . --provider openai --api-key "sk-..."

# gpt-4o is the default, but you can specify any OpenAI model
uvx skene-growth analyze . --model gpt-4o-mini --api-key "sk-..."

Gemini

Google's Gemini models via the v1beta API. Get an API key at aistudio.google.com/apikey.

Any Gemini model can be used via --model. The default is gemini-3-flash-preview.

uvx skene-growth analyze . --provider gemini --api-key "your-gemini-key"

# Use a specific model
uvx skene-growth analyze . --provider gemini --model gemini-2.5-pro --api-key "your-gemini-key"

Note: The v1beta API requires the -preview suffix on Gemini 3.x models.

Anthropic / Claude

Anthropic's Claude models. Get an API key at console.anthropic.com. Both anthropic and claude work as provider names.

Any Claude model can be used via --model. The default is claude-sonnet-4-5.

uvx skene-growth analyze . --provider anthropic --api-key "sk-ant-..."

# Or use the "claude" alias
uvx skene-growth analyze . --provider claude --api-key "sk-ant-..."

# Use a specific model
uvx skene-growth analyze . --provider claude --model claude-haiku-4-5 --api-key "sk-ant-..."

LM Studio

Run models locally with LM Studio. No API key required.

Use --model to specify whichever model you have loaded in LM Studio. If omitted, skene-growth sends custom-model as the model name (LM Studio typically ignores this and uses whichever model is currently loaded).

# Make sure LM Studio is running with a model loaded
uvx skene-growth analyze . --provider lmstudio

# Specify the model name if needed
uvx skene-growth analyze . --provider lmstudio --model "your-loaded-model"

Default server URL: http://localhost:1234/v1

To use a custom port, set the LMSTUDIO_BASE_URL environment variable:

export LMSTUDIO_BASE_URL="http://localhost:8080/v1"

The provider also accepts lm-studio and lm_studio as aliases.

See Troubleshooting for common LM Studio issues.

Ollama

Run models locally with Ollama. No API key required.

Use --model to specify whichever model you have pulled in Ollama. The default is llama3.3.

# Pull a model first
ollama pull llama3.3

# Make sure Ollama is running
ollama serve

# Analyze
uvx skene-growth analyze . --provider ollama

# Specify a model
uvx skene-growth analyze . --provider ollama --model mistral

Default server URL: http://localhost:11434/v1

To use a custom port, set the OLLAMA_BASE_URL environment variable:

export OLLAMA_BASE_URL="http://localhost:8080/v1"

See Troubleshooting for common Ollama issues.

Generic (OpenAI-compatible)

Connect to any OpenAI-compatible API endpoint. Requires --base-url or the SKENE_BASE_URL environment variable.

# With API key
uvx skene-growth analyze . --provider generic --base-url "https://your-api.com/v1" --api-key "your-key" --model "your-model"

# Local endpoint without API key
uvx skene-growth analyze . --provider generic --base-url "http://localhost:8000/v1" --model "local-model"

The provider also accepts openai-compatible and openai_compatible as aliases.

Rate limiting & fallback

When an LLM provider returns a rate limit error, skene-growth automatically falls back to a cheaper model to keep the workflow moving. This is convenient for interactive use but can corrupt results during benchmarking or when you need guaranteed output from a specific model.

Disabling fallback

Pass --no-fallback to disable model switching. Instead of falling back, the CLI retries the same model with exponential backoff and raises an error if all retries are exhausted:

uvx skene-growth analyze . --provider gemini --model gemini-3-flash-preview --no-fallback
uvx skene-growth plan --no-fallback
uvx skene-growth build --no-fallback

This flag is available on the analyze, plan, and build commands.

Next steps

• Configuration — Save provider settings to a config file
• Troubleshooting — Fix common provider issues