LLM Providers

Note: Ollama is the only supported backend. Additional providers implementing the LlmProvider interface (stdlib.md) will land in a future release.

Keel’s ai.* operations call a local Ollama instance.

Required

# Install Ollama from https://ollama.com, then pull a model:
ollama pull gemma4

# Point Keel at it:
export KEEL_OLLAMA_MODEL=gemma4

That’s the minimum. Every ai.classify(...), ai.draft(...), etc. now resolves through this model.

Custom host

export OLLAMA_HOST=http://192.168.1.10:11434   # default: http://localhost:11434

Named model aliases

If a program uses @model "fast" or using: "smart", Keel maps those names to Ollama tags via environment variables:

export KEEL_MODEL_FAST=gemma4
export KEEL_MODEL_SMART=mistral:7b-instruct

The lookup order when a call wants model X:

1. ollama:X prefix — strip and use X directly as the Ollama tag
2. KEEL_MODEL_<X> environment variable (X uppercased, - → _)
3. KEEL_OLLAMA_MODEL (catch-all)
4. Configuration error — the call fails with instructions for fixing it

Testing without a real LLM

export KEEL_LLM=mock

All ai.* calls return none (or throw AiSchemaError for schema mismatches). Absence is handled by ?? at the call site. Used by the integration test suite.

Troubleshooting

Ollama unreachable at http://localhost:11434 — the daemon isn’t running. Start it: ollama serve &.

Model 'X' has no mapping — you called @model "X" but there’s no matching KEEL_MODEL_X variable and no KEEL_OLLAMA_MODEL. Set one of them.

Ollama returned 404 — the tag isn’t pulled locally. Fix it: ollama pull <tag>.