Choosing your model

Choosing your model#

gptme is model-agnostic: it works with any LLM through a single --model flag, and you can pick a different model for every task. Use a small, fast model for quick questions and a powerful reasoning model for complex code — without changing tools, formats, or workflow.

This page is a task-oriented guide to picking a model. For the full provider reference (credentials, OAuth onboarding, OpenAI-compatible servers), see Providers.

Pick a model per session#

Pass --model (-m) as <provider>/<model> to choose the model for a single run:

# Quick question — small, cheap, fast
gptme "what does this regex match?" -m openrouter/qwen/qwen3-max

# Complex coding — powerful reasoning model
gptme "refactor this module for testability" -m anthropic/claude-sonnet-4-6

# Use a provider default (no model specified)
gptme "hello" -m anthropic

List the models gptme knows about at any time:

gptme '/models' - '/exit'

The rule of thumb: match the model to the job. Triage, summarization, and quick lookups run fine on small models; multi-step coding and reasoning benefit from a frontier model. Picking per task keeps cost down without capping capability.

One key, many models: OpenRouter#

OpenRouter is the easiest way to reach many models without managing a separate API key for each provider. With one OPENROUTER_API_KEY you can route to 100+ models from Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, DeepSeek, xAI, and more:

gptme "hello" -m openrouter/anthropic/claude-sonnet-4-6
gptme "hello" -m openrouter/deepseek/deepseek-v4-pro
gptme "hello" -m openrouter/x-ai/grok-4

gptme applies privacy-first defaults for OpenRouter (data collection denied, provider routing requires full parameter support). See the OpenRouter section of the Providers page for configuration details, quantization controls, and provider pinning.

Set a default model#

If you mostly use one model, set it once in gptme.toml (project) or ~/.config/gptme/config.toml (global) instead of passing --model every time:

# gptme.toml or ~/.config/gptme/config.toml
model = "openrouter/qwen/qwen3-max"

With a default configured, gptme "query" uses that model, and --model still overrides it per run when you need something stronger or cheaper.

See Configuration for the full config reference.

Per-agent models#

When you run multiple agents — for example a team of agents each handling a different role — each can have its own model. Set the model in the agent’s own config so a fast routing agent and a reasoning-heavy coding agent can coexist without per-call flags:

# router-agent/gptme.toml — cheap, fast, handles triage and dispatch
model = "openrouter/qwen/qwen3-max"

# coder-agent/gptme.toml — frontier model for complex implementation
model = "anthropic/claude-sonnet-4-6"

This is how an agent “brain” pins its default model: configure it once in the agent’s config, override per session only when a specific task needs a different model. No vendor lock-in, no format changes.

See also#

  • Providers — full provider reference: credentials, OAuth, OpenAI-compatible servers, local models

  • Custom Providers — add your own OpenAI-compatible provider

  • Configuration — gptme.toml and global config reference

  • Evals — how different models perform on gptme’s benchmark suite