Skip to main content
Crush supports multiple LLM providers including Anthropic, OpenAI, Google Gemini, AWS Bedrock, Azure, and many more. You can configure providers using environment variables or configuration files.

​
Quick Start with Environment Variables

The quickest way to get started is to set an API key for your preferred provider. Crush recognizes these environment variables:
Environment VariableProvider
ANTHROPIC_API_KEYAnthropic
OPENAI_API_KEYOpenAI
VERCEL_API_KEYVercel AI Gateway
GEMINI_API_KEYGoogle Gemini
SYNTHETIC_API_KEYSynthetic
ZAI_API_KEYZ.ai
MINIMAX_API_KEYMiniMax
HF_TOKENHugging Face Inference
CEREBRAS_API_KEYCerebras
OPENROUTER_API_KEYOpenRouter
IONET_API_KEYio.net
GROQ_API_KEYGroq
VERTEXAI_PROJECTGoogle Cloud VertexAI (Gemini)
VERTEXAI_LOCATIONGoogle Cloud VertexAI (Gemini)
AWS_ACCESS_KEY_IDAmazon Bedrock (Claude)
AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEYAmazon Bedrock (Claude)
AWS_REGIONAmazon Bedrock (Claude)
AWS_PROFILEAmazon Bedrock (Custom Profile)
AWS_BEARER_TOKEN_BEDROCKAmazon Bedrock
AZURE_OPENAI_API_ENDPOINTAzure OpenAI models
AZURE_OPENAI_API_KEYAzure OpenAI models (optional when using Entra ID)
AZURE_OPENAI_API_VERSIONAzure OpenAI models
Just set an environment variable and run Crush. If no API key is found, Crush will prompt you to enter one.

​
Custom Provider Configuration

For advanced scenarios, you can configure custom providers in your crush.json file.

​
OpenAI-Compatible Providers

Crush supports two OpenAI provider types:
  • openai - For proxying/routing requests through OpenAI
  • openai-compat - For non-OpenAI providers with OpenAI-compatible APIs
Here’s an example configuration for Deepseek: 
{
  "$schema": "https://charm.land/crush.json",
  "providers": {
    "deepseek": {
      "type": "openai-compat",
      "base_url": "https://api.deepseek.com/v1",
      "api_key": "$DEEPSEEK_API_KEY",
      "models": [
        {
          "id": "deepseek-chat",
          "name": "Deepseek V3",
          "cost_per_1m_in": 0.27,
          "cost_per_1m_out": 1.1,
          "cost_per_1m_in_cached": 0.07,
          "cost_per_1m_out_cached": 1.1,
          "context_window": 64000,
          "default_max_tokens": 5000
        }
      ]
    }
  }
}

​
Anthropic-Compatible Providers

For providers that use the Anthropic API format: 
{
  "$schema": "https://charm.land/crush.json",
  "providers": {
    "custom-anthropic": {
      "type": "anthropic",
      "base_url": "https://api.anthropic.com/v1",
      "api_key": "$ANTHROPIC_API_KEY",
      "extra_headers": {
        "anthropic-version": "2023-06-01"
      },
      "models": [
        {
          "id": "claude-sonnet-4-20250514",
          "name": "Claude Sonnet 4",
          "cost_per_1m_in": 3,
          "cost_per_1m_out": 15,
          "cost_per_1m_in_cached": 3.75,
          "cost_per_1m_out_cached": 0.3,
          "context_window": 200000,
          "default_max_tokens": 50000,
          "can_reason": true,
          "supports_attachments": true
        }
      ]
    }
  }
}

​
Local Models

You can run Crush with local models using OpenAI-compatible servers.

​
Ollama

{
  "providers": {
    "ollama": {
      "name": "Ollama",
      "base_url": "http://localhost:11434/v1/",
      "type": "openai-compat",
      "models": [
        {
          "name": "Qwen 3 30B",
          "id": "qwen3:30b",
          "context_window": 256000,
          "default_max_tokens": 20000
        }
      ]
    }
  }
}

​
LM Studio

{
  "providers": {
    "lmstudio": {
      "name": "LM Studio",
      "base_url": "http://localhost:1234/v1/",
      "type": "openai-compat",
      "models": [
        {
          "name": "Qwen 3 30B",
          "id": "qwen/qwen3-30b-a3b-2507",
          "context_window": 256000,
          "default_max_tokens": 20000
        }
      ]
    }
  }
}

​
Cloud Providers

​
Amazon Bedrock

Crush supports running Anthropic models through Bedrock (caching disabled):
  1. Configure AWS credentials: aws configure
  2. Set AWS_REGION or AWS_DEFAULT_REGION environment variable
  3. (Optional) Use a specific profile: AWS_PROFILE=myprofile crush
  4. Alternative: Set AWS_BEARER_TOKEN_BEDROCK instead of running aws configure

​
Vertex AI Platform

Vertex AI appears when VERTEXAI_PROJECT and VERTEXAI_LOCATION are set: 
gcloud auth application-default login
Configure specific models: 
{
  "$schema": "https://charm.land/crush.json",
  "providers": {
    "vertexai": {
      "models": [
        {
          "id": "claude-sonnet-4@20250514",
          "name": "VertexAI Sonnet 4",
          "cost_per_1m_in": 3,
          "cost_per_1m_out": 15,
          "cost_per_1m_in_cached": 3.75,
          "cost_per_1m_out_cached": 0.3,
          "context_window": 200000,
          "default_max_tokens": 50000,
          "can_reason": true,
          "supports_attachments": true
        }
      ]
    }
  }
}

​
Model Configuration Options

When defining models in your provider configuration, you can specify:
  • id (required) - Model identifier used by the provider API
  • name (required) - Human-readable model name
  • cost_per_1m_in - Cost per 1M input tokens
  • cost_per_1m_out - Cost per 1M output tokens
  • cost_per_1m_in_cached - Cost per 1M cached input tokens
  • cost_per_1m_out_cached - Cost per 1M cached output tokens
  • context_window - Maximum context window size
  • default_max_tokens - Default maximum tokens for responses
  • can_reason - Whether the model supports extended reasoning
  • supports_attachments - Whether the model supports file attachments

​
Provider Auto-Updates

By default, Crush automatically updates the provider database from Catwalk, the open source Crush provider database.

​
Disabling Auto-Updates

For air-gapped or restricted environments: 
{
  "$schema": "https://charm.land/crush.json",
  "options": {
    "disable_provider_auto_update": true
  }
}
Or use the environment variable: 
export CRUSH_DISABLE_PROVIDER_AUTO_UPDATE=1

​
Manual Updates

Update providers manually: 
# Update from Catwalk
crush update-providers

# Update from custom URL
crush update-providers https://example.com/

# Update from local file
crush update-providers /path/to/local-providers.json

# Reset to embedded version
crush update-providers embedded

​
Environment Variable Expansion

In configuration files, you can reference environment variables using the $VARIABLE_NAME syntax: 
{
  "providers": {
    "openai": {
      "api_key": "$OPENAI_API_KEY"
    }
  }
}
Crush automatically expands these variables when loading the configuration.

​
Next Steps

Model Selection

Learn how to list and select models

Permissions

Configure tool permissions

Build docs developers (and LLMs) love

Get started for freeTalk to us