pi-ai Providers

Pi's provider engine (pi-ai) is the L1 motor for API providers. When activeRoute is "pi-ai", providers with transport: "api" run through Pi's maintained catalog (~36 providers), including prompt caching and up-to-date model metadata.

Enabling pi-ai

The route is selected in ~/.abtars/config/transport.json. Any provider with transport: "api" is served by the pi-ai engine on the pi-ai route:

{
  "schemaVersion": 3,
  "activeRoute": "pi-ai",
  "providers": {
    "openrouter": {
      "transport": "api",
      "endpoint": "https://openrouter.ai/api/v1",
      "apiKeyEnv": "OPENROUTER_API_KEY"
    },
    "anthropic": {
      "transport": "api",
      "endpoint": "https://api.anthropic.com/v1",
      "apiKeyEnv": "ANTHROPIC_API_KEY",
      "apiFormat": "anthropic"
    }
  }
}

The apiKeyEnv field references the key in ~/.abtars/secret/ by environment-variable name. Raw credential fields (apiKey, token, secret, ...) are rejected — credentials never live in transport.json.

The acp route runs agent CLIs (kiro-cli, gemini) and is independent of pi-ai.

What pi-ai provides

Feature	Hand-rolled (L0)	pi-ai (L1)
Supported providers	~3 (Anthropic, OpenAI, OpenRouter)	~36
Prompt caching	No	Yes (reported in /usage)
Model catalog	models.json	Pi's catalog (live at boot)
Auth	API keys only	API key + OAuth (Anthropic/Copilot/Codex)
Token accounting	Hand-rolled	Pi maintained
Fallback provider?	No — single provider	No — Pi classifies, abTARS decides

Prompt Caching

Pi-ai surfaces cacheRead and cacheWrite fields. These are visible in /usage when using an L1 provider. The L0 reptile floor does not report cache (the hand-rolled adapters don't see provider cache fields).

Model Picker

The /model Telegram command uses Pi's catalog to populate the picker with cost data. The /usage command shows cache savings where applicable.

Fallback and Emergency

• Fallback/rotation stays abTARS's own — Pi classifies errors, abTARS decides which model to retry with
• /emergency (hailMary) is a dedicated ACP fast path — it never enters pi-ai or the normal message pipeline
• ACP transport is untouched (Pi has no ACP path)

What stays the same

• /model change works identically
• Fallback chains in transport.json work identically
• All /commands work identically
• Everything still works with pi absent — the L0 floor is always available

Requirements

• Node.js >= 22.19.0
• @earendil-works/pi-ai installed (abtars deps install)