Models & Engines
CLANKER is model-agnostic. Agents run on Anthropic (Claude) or OpenAI, and the two are interchangeable peers — same setup, same billing, same key flow. No provider is special-cased.
Choosing a model — the “engine”
You don’t pick a model per message. The model (the engine) is resolved from a cascade — most-specific wins:
agent pin > workspace default > account default > deployment default| Level | Where it’s set |
|---|---|
| Agent | The agent’s definition pins a model (model: in its frontmatter). |
| Workspace | A default engine for everyone in the workspace (Workspace Settings). |
| Account | Your personal default (Settings → Default Engine). |
| Deployment | The platform default + the allow-list of enabled models. |
The resolved model’s provider also selects which wire format a skill run is executed over. There is no separate switch to flip: one provider per run, chosen by the model.
Bring your own key (BYOK)
Add a key per provider in Settings — Anthropic, OpenAI, or both at once, zero markup. Each key lives in its own slot, so saving one never replaces another, and removing one leaves the rest working.
Selection is model-first: the model you ask for names the provider, and that provider’s key pays. Ask for a Claude model and your Anthropic key is used; ask for a GPT model in the same conversation and your OpenAI key is. If you hold no key for the provider a model belongs to, the run falls back to the deployment’s credential and is billed normally — holding a key does not make every model free.
Your keys are used for both chat and skill execution.
One gateway
All LLM traffic — managed and BYOK, Anthropic and OpenAI — routes through a single AI gateway for observability, rate-limiting, and egress control. BYOK requests carry your key through the gateway (never a direct call to the provider).
Availability is driven by keys
There are no provider flags. A provider’s models are offered iff a key exists for it — the deployment’s, or yours. A provider the deployment has no key for is BYOK-only: bring your own and it lights up for you, and every provider you hold a key for is unlocked, not just one. A provider with no deployment key and no BYOK key simply isn’t shown, so you can never land on an engine that can’t run.
Workspace owners can narrow the set further for their workspace; you only ever choose from what’s available to you.