The BYOLLM model alias system — configuring OpenAI, Anthropic, and Ollama providers and mapping them to agent-facing aliases.

Configuring LLM Providers

AEGIS uses a BYOLLM (Bring Your Own LLM) system. Agent manifests reference model aliases (e.g., default, fast, smart), not provider names. Node configuration maps these aliases to concrete providers and models. This decouples agent code from infrastructure choices — you can swap providers or models without changing any agent manifest.

How the Alias System Works

Agent manifest:  spec.runtime.model = "fast"
         ↓
bootstrap.py:    POST /v1/dispatch-gateway  { "model": "fast" }
         ↓
Node config:     spec.llm_providers[].models[].alias = "fast"
                   → provider: ollama, model: qwen2.5-coder:7b
         ↓
LLM API call to http://ollama:11434

Credential resolution happens in the orchestrator. The agent process never receives API keys.

Standard Aliases

AEGIS defines five conventional aliases. You can map any of these (or create your own) in your node config:

Alias	Intent	Typical Mapping
`default`	General-purpose, used when no model is specified	GPT-4o, Claude Sonnet, phi3
`fast`	Low latency, high throughput	GPT-4o-mini, Claude Haiku, qwen2.5-coder:7b
`smart`	Maximum capability for complex tasks	GPT-4o, Claude Sonnet, deepseek-coder-v2
`cheap`	Minimize API cost	GPT-4o-mini, Ollama local models
`local`	Air-gapped / zero API cost	Any Ollama model

Configuring Providers

All provider configuration lives under spec.llm_providers in aegis-config.yaml.

Ollama (Local / Air-Gapped)

Ollama runs a local inference server. No API key is required. This is ideal for air-gapped environments or cost-sensitive workloads.

spec:
  llm_providers:
    - name: "local"
      type: "ollama"
      endpoint: "http://ollama:11434"
      models:
        - alias: "default"
          model: "phi3:mini"
          capabilities: ["code", "reasoning"]
          context_window: 4096
        - alias: "fast"
          model: "qwen2.5-coder:7b"
          capabilities: ["code"]
          context_window: 4096
        - alias: "local"
          model: "phi3:mini"
          capabilities: ["code", "reasoning"]
          context_window: 4096

Ensure the Ollama server is running and the model is pulled before starting the AEGIS daemon:

ollama pull phi3:mini
ollama pull qwen2.5-coder:7b
ollama serve

OpenAI

spec:
  llm_providers:
    - name: "openai"
      type: "openai"
      api_key: "env:OPENAI_API_KEY"
      models:
        - alias: "default"
          model: "gpt-4o"
          capabilities: ["code", "reasoning"]
          context_window: 128000
        - alias: "fast"
          model: "gpt-4o-mini"
          capabilities: ["code"]
          context_window: 128000
        - alias: "smart"
          model: "gpt-4o"
          capabilities: ["code", "reasoning"]
          context_window: 128000
        - alias: "cheap"
          model: "gpt-4o-mini"
          capabilities: ["code"]
          context_window: 128000

For Azure OpenAI, add base_url and api_version:

    - name: "azure-openai"
      type: "openai"
      api_key: "env:AZURE_OPENAI_KEY"
      base_url: "https://my-resource.openai.azure.com/openai/deployments/gpt-4o"
      api_version: "2024-02-01"
      models:
        - alias: "default"
          model: "gpt-4o"
          capabilities: ["code", "reasoning"]
          context_window: 128000

Anthropic

spec:
  llm_providers:
    - name: "anthropic"
      type: "anthropic"
      api_key: "env:ANTHROPIC_API_KEY"
      models:
        - alias: "default"
          model: "claude-sonnet-4-5"
          capabilities: ["code", "reasoning"]
          context_window: 200000
        - alias: "fast"
          model: "claude-3-5-haiku-20241022"
          capabilities: ["code"]
          context_window: 200000
        - alias: "smart"
          model: "claude-sonnet-4-5"
          capabilities: ["code", "reasoning"]
          context_window: 200000

OpenAI-Compatible Providers

Any provider that exposes an OpenAI-compatible API (e.g., vLLM, LM Studio, Together AI) can be used with type: "openai" plus a custom base_url:

    - name: "together"
      type: "openai"
      api_key: "env:TOGETHER_API_KEY"
      base_url: "https://api.together.xyz/v1"
      models:
        - alias: "cheap"
          model: "meta-llama/Meta-Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct-Turbo"
          capabilities: ["code"]
          context_window: 8192

Selection Strategy

The spec.llm_selection block controls how the orchestrator resolves aliases when multiple providers define the same alias:

spec:
  llm_selection:
    strategy: "prefer-local"     # Prefer local providers, fall back to cloud
    default_provider: "local"    # Provider to try first for all aliases
    max_retries: 3               # Retry count on transient failures
    retry_delay_ms: 1000         # Delay between retries

Strategy	Behavior
`prefer-local`	Use the local provider if it defines the requested alias; fall back to cloud providers
`round-robin`	Distribute requests across providers that define the alias
`failover`	Always use `default_provider`; switch to next provider only on error

Using Aliases in Agent Manifests

Set spec.runtime.model in your agent manifest to select a model alias:

apiVersion: 100monkeys.ai/v1
kind: Agent
metadata:
  name: "my-agent"
  version: "1.0.0"
spec:
  runtime:
    language: "python"
    version: "3.11"
    model: "smart"        # ← Model alias
  task:
    instruction: "..."

If model is omitted, it defaults to "default".

Hot-Swapping Models

To change which model backs a given alias:

Update aegis-config.yaml:

spec:
  llm_providers:
    - name: "openai"
      type: "openai"
      api_key: "env:OPENAI_API_KEY"
      models:
        - alias: "default"
          model: "gpt-4o"          # Change this to swap models

Restart the AEGIS daemon:

aegis daemon stop
aegis daemon start --config aegis-config.yaml

Running executions continue using the provider that was active when they started. New executions use the updated alias mapping.

Provider Configuration Reference

Provider Fields

Field	Type	Required	Description
`name`	string	Yes	Internal identifier for the provider.
`type`	`openai` \| `anthropic` \| `ollama`	Yes	Provider adapter to use. Use `openai` for any OpenAI-compatible API.
`api_key`	string	Except Ollama	API key value or `env:VAR_NAME` reference. Never hardcode keys.
`endpoint` / `base_url`	string	Ollama, Azure	Override the default API endpoint.
`api_version`	string	Azure only	API version string for Azure OpenAI.

Model Entry Fields

Field	Type	Required	Description
`alias`	string	Yes	Agent-facing name (e.g., `default`, `fast`, `smart`).
`model`	string	Yes	Model identifier as accepted by the provider's API.
`capabilities`	string[]	No	Tags like `code`, `reasoning`, `vision`.
`context_window`	integer	No	Provider's context window size in tokens.

Credential Security

API keys configured as env:VAR_NAME are read from the daemon's environment at startup. They are stored in memory and never written to disk or logs. When OpenBao secrets management is configured (see Secrets Management), credentials can also be sourced from OpenBao with the secret:path/to/secret syntax.

Agents never receive API keys. All LLM API calls are made by the orchestrator host process using the resolved credential.

Configuring LLM Providers

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