Providers

ExAthena ships five built-in providers plus a :mock for tests. Consumers can also pass any module that implements ExAthena.Provider directly, or drop a JSON file into ~/.config/ex_athena/providers/ to define a named provider at runtime without touching config.exs.

Ollama (:ollama)

Local Ollama via /api/chat. Native OpenAI-style tool_calls on modern models (llama3.1, qwen2.5-coder, mistral-nemo, llama3.2, phi-3.5). Streaming via newline-delimited JSON chunks.

config :ex_athena, :ollama,
  base_url: "http://localhost:11434",
  model: "llama3.1"

Per-call override:

ExAthena.query("…", provider: :ollama, model: "qwen2.5-coder")

Capabilities

OpenAI-compatible (:openai_compatible / :openai / :llamacpp)

/v1/chat/completions. Covers every endpoint that speaks OpenAI chat completions: OpenAI proper, OpenRouter, LM Studio, vLLM, Groq, Together AI, DeepInfra, Fireworks, llama.cpp's server mode. Streaming via SSE.

config :ex_athena, :openai_compatible,
  base_url: "https://api.openai.com/v1",
  api_key: System.get_env("OPENAI_API_KEY"),
  model: "gpt-4o-mini"

Swap endpoint per-call

ExAthena.query("…",
  provider: :openai_compatible,
  base_url: "https://openrouter.ai/api/v1",
  api_key: System.get_env("OPENROUTER_API_KEY"),
  model: "anthropic/claude-opus-4.1")

Capabilities

Claude (:claude)

Wraps the claude_code SDK. Preserves every feature the SDK provides natively — hooks, can_use_tool callbacks, MCP servers, session resume, prompt cache reuse — by passing them through via :provider_opts.

config :ex_athena, :claude,
  api_key: System.get_env("ANTHROPIC_API_KEY"),
  model: "claude-opus-4-5"

The claude_code dep is declared optional: true on ex_athena; if you use this provider, add it to your own deps:

{:claude_code, "~> 0.36"}

Capabilities

Gemini (:gemini)

Google Gemini via the Google AI Studio API. Backed by req_llm's Google adapter — supports native tool calls (via v1beta, the default) and streaming via SSE.

config :ex_athena, :gemini,
  api_key: System.get_env("GOOGLE_API_KEY"),
  model: "gemini-2.5-flash"

Per-call override:

ExAthena.query("…", provider: :gemini, model: "gemini-2.5-pro")

For the full walkthrough — API key setup, model table, tool-calling caveats, and rate-limit notes — see the Gemini setup guide.

OpenRouter (:openrouter)

Hosted model gateway that routes to hundreds of models from Anthropic, Google, Meta, Mistral, and others through a single OpenAI-compatible endpoint. Requires an OpenRouter API key.

config :ex_athena, :openrouter,
  api_key: System.get_env("OPENROUTER_API_KEY"),
  model: "anthropic/claude-opus-4-5"

Per-call model switch:

ExAthena.query("…", provider: :openrouter, model: "google/gemini-2.5-pro")

Capabilities

Mock (:mock)

Unit-test double. Scripted responses either via canned text or a responder function, plus optional per-call event lists for streaming tests.

ExAthena.query("ping", provider: :mock, mock: [text: "pong"])

# Dynamic:
responder = fn request -> %ExAthena.Response{text: "echo: " <> hd(request.messages).content} end
ExAthena.query("hi", provider: :mock, mock: [responder: responder])

# Streaming:
events = [
  %ExAthena.Streaming.Event{type: :text_delta, data: "Hello"},
  %ExAthena.Streaming.Event{type: :text_delta, data: " world"},
  %ExAthena.Streaming.Event{type: :stop, data: :stop}
]
ExAthena.stream("hi", fn _ -> :ok end,
  provider: :mock,
  mock: [text: "Hello world"],
  mock_events: events)

Vision / multimodal

Vision support varies by provider. Pass images: [%{data: binary(), media_type: String.t()}] (or %{url: String.t()} entries) to any ExAthena.query/2, ExAthena.stream/3, or ExAthena.run/2 call. See the Multimodal guide for the full walkthrough including examples for each provider.

Runtime JSON config

ExAthena reads every *.json file from ~/.config/ex_athena/providers/ at application startup via ExAthena.ProviderRegistry. Each file defines one named provider that you reference by its name string, the same way you pass a built-in atom.

ExAthena.query("…", provider: "my-groq")
ExAthena.query("…", provider: "my-groq", model: "mixtral-8x7b-32768")

Files that fail validation are skipped with a warning — a single bad file does not prevent others from loading and the application still starts.

Schema

Security

Never store raw API keys in JSON files that may be committed to version control.

• Use api_key_env to name the environment variable instead of embedding the key directly:

{
  "name": "my-groq",
  "adapter": "req_llm",
  "req_llm_provider_tag": "openai",
  "base_url": "https://api.groq.com/openai/v1",
  "api_key_env": "GROQ_API_KEY",
  "default_model": "llama-3.3-70b-versatile"
}

• Restrict file permissions on any file that does contain a literal key:

chmod 600 ~/.config/ex_athena/providers/my-provider.json

• Add ~/.config/ex_athena/providers/ to .gitignore when files may contain credentials.

Writing your own

1. name must be a non-empty string unique across all files in the directory. It becomes the string you pass to provider:.
2. adapter must be exactly "req_llm" (any HTTP-based model endpoint) or "mock" (tests only).
3. req_llm_provider_tag routes requests through req_llm's model catalog. Use "openai" for OpenAI-compatible endpoints, "anthropic" for Anthropic, "google" for Google Gemini.
4. Validation errors (missing required fields, unknown adapter, malformed JSON) are logged as warnings and the file is skipped — the application still starts normally.
5. Files are loaded once at startup. Restart the application to pick up changes.

Ready-to-copy examples live in priv/provider_examples/.

Groq

Groq provides ultra-fast inference for open-source models on dedicated LPU hardware.

{
  "name": "groq",
  "adapter": "req_llm",
  "req_llm_provider_tag": "openai",
  "base_url": "https://api.groq.com/openai/v1",
  "api_key_env": "GROQ_API_KEY",
  "default_model": "llama-3.3-70b-versatile"
}

Copy priv/provider_examples/groq.json to ~/.config/ex_athena/providers/ and set GROQ_API_KEY. Supported models include llama-3.3-70b-versatile, llama-3.1-8b-instant, and mixtral-8x7b-32768.

Together AI

Together AI hosts a broad catalog of open-source models with optional fine-tuning.

{
  "name": "together",
  "adapter": "req_llm",
  "req_llm_provider_tag": "openai",
  "base_url": "https://api.together.xyz/v1",
  "api_key_env": "TOGETHER_API_KEY",
  "default_model": "meta-llama/Llama-3-70b-chat-hf"
}

Copy priv/provider_examples/together.json to ~/.config/ex_athena/providers/ and set TOGETHER_API_KEY.

Fireworks AI

Fireworks AI offers serverless inference for popular open-source models with low latency.

{
  "name": "fireworks",
  "adapter": "req_llm",
  "req_llm_provider_tag": "openai",
  "base_url": "https://api.fireworks.ai/inference/v1",
  "api_key_env": "FIREWORKS_API_KEY",
  "default_model": "accounts/fireworks/models/llama-v3p3-70b-instruct"
}

Copy priv/provider_examples/fireworks.json to ~/.config/ex_athena/providers/ and set FIREWORKS_API_KEY.

DeepSeek

DeepSeek provides cost-effective inference for the DeepSeek family of models.

{
  "name": "deepseek",
  "adapter": "req_llm",
  "req_llm_provider_tag": "openai",
  "base_url": "https://api.deepseek.com/v1",
  "api_key_env": "DEEPSEEK_API_KEY",
  "default_model": "deepseek-chat"
}

Copy priv/provider_examples/deepseek.json to ~/.config/ex_athena/providers/ and set DEEPSEEK_API_KEY. Use "deepseek-reasoner" for the reasoning-optimised variant.

Custom providers

Implement the ExAthena.Provider behaviour:

defmodule MyApp.MyProvider do
  @behaviour ExAthena.Provider

  @impl true
  def capabilities, do: %{native_tool_calls: false, streaming: false}

  @impl true
  def query(%ExAthena.Request{} = req, _opts) do
    # … make your call, return {:ok, %ExAthena.Response{}}
  end
end

ExAthena.query("hi", provider: MyApp.MyProvider)

Capabilities are used by the agent loop (Phase 2) to pick the right tool-call protocol. Declare what you actually support — if you lie, the loop will fall back automatically.