Skip to main content
QWED ships with built-in support for OpenAI, Anthropic, and Ollama. Starting in v4.0, you can also register any OpenAI-compatible endpoint as a custom provider through a YAML configuration file. This is useful when you work with providers like Groq, Together AI, Fireworks, Perplexity, or self-hosted inference servers that expose an OpenAI-compatible API. Custom providers are stored in ~/.qwed/providers.yaml. Once registered, they appear as options in the qwed init wizard and work with qwed verify just like built-in providers.

​
How it works

Custom providers follow the same security model as built-in ones:
  • The YAML file stores the name of the environment variable that holds your API key, never the key itself.
  • The file is written with 0600 permissions (owner-read/write only on Unix).
  • When you select a custom provider in qwed init, it maps to the openai_compat inference engine internally, so no changes are needed to your verification workflow.

​
Define a custom provider

Create or edit ~/.qwed/providers.yaml: 
providers:
  groq:
    base_url: "https://api.groq.com/openai/v1"
    api_key_env: "GROQ_API_KEY"
    default_model: "llama-3.3-70b-versatile"
    models_endpoint: "/models"
    auth_header: "Authorization"
    auth_prefix: "Bearer"

​
Required fields

FieldDescription
base_urlThe provider’s OpenAI-compatible base URL
api_key_envName of the environment variable that stores your API key

​
Optional fields

FieldDefaultDescription
default_modelgpt-4o-miniModel name used when none is specified
models_endpoint/modelsPath to the provider’s model listing endpoint
auth_headerAuthorizationHTTP header used for authentication
auth_prefixBearerPrefix added before the token value
After saving the file, run qwed init and your custom provider appears alongside the built-in options.

​
Import a community provider

Instead of writing YAML by hand, you can import a provider definition from a URL: 
qwed provider import https://raw.githubusercontent.com/my-org/qwed-providers/main/groq.yaml
This downloads the YAML file, validates its structure, and saves it to ~/.qwed/providers.yaml. After importing, the provider is immediately available in qwed init.
Only http and https URLs are accepted. The download has a 10-second timeout. The imported YAML must contain base_url and api_key_env fields or it is rejected.

​
Example community YAML

A valid community provider file looks like this: 
providers:
  fireworks:
    base_url: "https://api.fireworks.ai/inference/v1"
    api_key_env: "FIREWORKS_API_KEY"
    default_model: "accounts/fireworks/models/llama-v3p3-70b-instruct"
Or as a flat format (without the providers wrapper): 
name: "together"
base_url: "https://api.together.xyz/v1"
api_key_env: "TOGETHER_API_KEY"
default_model: "meta-llama/Meta-Llama-3.1-70B-Instruct-Turbo"

​
Use a custom provider

Once a custom provider is registered:
1

Set your API key

Export the environment variable referenced in api_key_env:
export GROQ_API_KEY="gsk_your_key_here"
2

Run the init wizard

qwed init
Your custom provider appears in the selection list as “Groq (Auto-Configured via YAML)”. Select it, and the wizard collects your credentials and writes them to .env as usual.
3

Verify

qwed verify "What is the derivative of x^3?"
QWED routes the translation step through your custom provider and verifies the result with its deterministic engines.

​
Multiple providers

You can define as many providers as you need in the same file: 
providers:
  groq:
    base_url: "https://api.groq.com/openai/v1"
    api_key_env: "GROQ_API_KEY"
    default_model: "llama-3.3-70b-versatile"

  together:
    base_url: "https://api.together.xyz/v1"
    api_key_env: "TOGETHER_API_KEY"
    default_model: "meta-llama/Meta-Llama-3.1-70B-Instruct-Turbo"

  fireworks:
    base_url: "https://api.fireworks.ai/inference/v1"
    api_key_env: "FIREWORKS_API_KEY"
    default_model: "accounts/fireworks/models/llama-v3p3-70b-instruct"
Each provider gets its own entry in the qwed init wizard.

​
Security

  • No secrets in YAML. The config file only stores the name of the env var (e.g., GROQ_API_KEY), not the actual key. Secrets live in your .env file, which is protected by 0600 permissions and .gitignore.
  • Atomic writes. The YAML file is written atomically with a temp-file-and-rename pattern to prevent partial writes.
  • Slug sanitization. Imported provider slugs are sanitized to lowercase alphanumeric characters and cannot shadow built-in provider names.
  • Symlink protection. File writes refuse to follow symlinks.