Providers

Corydora is provider-neutral. It ships runtime adapters for 8 AI runtimes, and you configure exactly one as your active provider in .corydora.json. The adapters fall into two categories based on how they execute work.

CLI-backed providers

CLI-backed providers use native-agent execution mode. Corydora spawns the AI tool as a subprocess and lets it run autonomously inside a git worktree. The agent reads and edits files using its own built-in tools — Corydora does not intermediate the file I/O. This makes CLI-backed providers the strongest choice for complex, multi-file changes where the model benefits from being able to navigate the codebase iteratively.

API-backed providers

API-backed providers use single-file-json execution mode. Corydora reads the target file, constructs a prompt that includes the full file content, sends it to the provider's API, and parses the response as a structured JSON payload. The model returns either inline fileEdits (path + replacement content) or a diff-style result, which Corydora applies. This mode is simpler to set up and works well for focused single-file fixes.

Provider comparison

Provider	Type	Execution Mode	Default Model	Auth Method
claude-cli	CLI	native-agent	sonnet	Claude Code auth
codex-cli	CLI	native-agent	gpt-5-codex	OpenAI auth / OPENAI_API_KEY
gemini-cli	CLI	native-agent	gemini-2.5-pro	Google auth / API key
anthropic-api	API	single-file-json	claude-sonnet-4-5	ANTHROPIC_API_KEY
openai-api	API	single-file-json	gpt-5	OPENAI_API_KEY
google-api	API	single-file-json	gemini-2.5-pro	GOOGLE_API_KEY / GEMINI_API_KEY
bedrock	API	single-file-json	anthropic.claude-3-7-sonnet-20250219-v1:0	AWS credentials
ollama	API	single-file-json	qwen2.5-coder:7b	Local Ollama server

Which provider should I use?

• Claude Code installed — use claude-cli. It has the richest tool access (Read, Glob, Grep, Edit, Write, and scoped Bash) and handles large multi-file refactors well.
• API key only — anthropic-api or openai-api are straightforward starting points. Set one environment variable and you're running.
• Fully local / privacy-sensitive — use ollama. No data leaves your machine.
• AWS infrastructure — use bedrock to stay within your existing IAM and audit boundaries.

Run corydora doctor at any time to see which providers are installed and authenticated on your machine.

Secrets and environment variables

Store project-local secrets in .corydora/.env.local. This file is git-ignored by default and is loaded automatically when Corydora starts. Never put API keys or credentials in .corydora.json — that file is meant to be committed.

.corydora/
  .env.local      # secrets — git-ignored
  .corydora.json  # config — commit this