Providers & credentials
The first run and any heal need an AI provider; deterministic replay never does. How Scout infers the provider from your model, the two engines, and how scout doctor verifies credentials.
The first scout go on a scenario (and any heal) needs an AI provider. Deterministic replay never uses an LLM, so CI that only replays needs no credentials.
Run scout doctor anytime to check: it prints the model, inferred provider, and engine, runs a fast network-free detection ladder, then does a live one-step ping to confirm the credentials actually work (exit 0 valid, 1 not — with copy-pasteable remediation).
Choosing a provider
Scout infers the provider from the model in scout.config.json (case-insensitive):
model starts with | Provider | Guide |
|---|---|---|
claude… | Anthropic (default) | Claude |
gemini… / google… | Gemini | |
gpt…, o1, o3, o4… | OpenAI | OpenAI |
Unknown/empty model ids fall back to Anthropic.
Engines
agent-sdk(default for Anthropic) — the trusted Claude Agent SDK. Reuses a Claude Code session with zero config.ai-sdk(default for Google/OpenAI; can also run Claude for parity) — the Vercel AI SDK engine. Authenticates with a real API key only.
Override with SCOUT_ENGINE=agent-sdk|ai-sdk or "engine" in scout.config.json (see the config file reference). Note: the AI SDK engine cannot reuse the Claude Code keychain/OAuth session — under it, Anthropic needs ANTHROPIC_API_KEY.
TL;DR
- Claude Code signed in? Nothing to do —
scout doctorshould report ✓. - Otherwise export one of:
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY,GEMINI_API_KEY, orOPENAI_API_KEY, matching yourmodel.