Custom providers

Configure any Anthropic-compatible API endpoint as a named Clother provider.

If the provider you want to use is not in the built-in catalog, you can configure it as a custom provider. Clother installs a clother-<name> launcher for it like any other provider.

Configuration

Run the interactive configuration command:

clother config custom

Clother will prompt you for:

Field	Description
Name	A short identifier for the provider (used in the launcher name, e.g. myprovider → clother-myprovider)
Base URL	The Anthropic-compatible API base URL
API key	Your API key for the provider

Custom providers do not have a built-in default model. Pass --model <model-id> each time you launch, or run clother config <name> after setup to adjust settings.

After saving, the launcher is immediately available:

clother-<name>

Example workflow

# Configure a custom provider named "myprovider"
clother config custom
# ... follow the prompts ...

# Use the resulting launcher
clother-myprovider

# Override the model at runtime
clother-myprovider --model some-model-id

# Inspect the resolved configuration
clother info myprovider

Requirements

The endpoint you configure must be compatible with the Anthropic Messages API. Clother sets:

• ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL to your configured base URL
• ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN to your configured API key

and then launches the Claude CLI, which sends requests to that endpoint.

The provider name must match ^[a-z0-9_-]+$ — lowercase letters, digits, underscores, and hyphens only. The API key is stored in secrets.env under a variable derived from the name: for example, a provider named myprovider uses MYPROVIDER_API_KEY.

Use clother test myprovider after configuring a custom provider to verify that the endpoint is reachable.