pi-ai Providers

Pi's provider engine (pi-ai) can serve as an optional L1 motor inside DirectApiTransport. When enabled, it replaces the hand-rolled provider adapters with Pi's maintained catalog of ~36 providers, including prompt caching, OAuth auth, and up-to-date model metadata.

Enabling pi-ai

Set useProviderLib: true on a provider entry in ~/.abtars/config/transport.json:

{
  "providers": {
    "openrouter": {
      "transport": "api",
      "endpoint": "https://openrouter.ai/api/v1",
      "apiKeyEnv": "OPENROUTER_API_KEY",
      "useProviderLib": true
    },
    "anthropic": {
      "transport": "api",
      "endpoint": "https://api.anthropic.com/v1",
      "apiKeyEnv": "ANTHROPIC_API_KEY",
      "useProviderLib": true
    }
  }
}

The flag is per-provider, not global. You can mix L1 (Pi-powered) and L0 (hand-rolled) providers in the same config.

What changes

Feature	L0 (hand-rolled)	L1 (pi-ai)
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

When pi-ai is on, 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

• L2 fallback/rotation stays abTARS's own — Pi classifies errors, abTARS decides which model to retry with
• /emergency (hailMary) always runs on the L0 reptile floor — never through pi-ai
• 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)