Configuration

Environment variables and defaults.

ai-cli is configured entirely through environment variables. There is no config file.

Environment variables

AI_GATEWAY_API_KEY

string

Vercel AI Gateway API key. Provides access to all supported models.

OPENAI_API_KEY

string

Provider-specific key (or other provider keys like ANTHROPIC_API_KEY).

AI_CLI_TEXT_MODEL

string

Default text model. Overrides openai/gpt-5.5.

AI_CLI_IMAGE_MODEL

string

Default image model. Overrides openai/gpt-image-2.

AI_CLI_VIDEO_MODEL

string

Default video model. Overrides bytedance/seedance-2.0.

AI_CLI_OUTPUT_DIR

path

Default output directory for generated files.

AI_CLI_PREVIEW

0 | 1

1 forces inline preview on, 0 disables it.

NO_COLOR

any

Disable ANSI color output.

FORCE_COLOR

any

Force color output even when not a TTY.

Precedence

-m flag always takes priority over AI_CLI_*_MODEL env vars.
-o flag always takes priority over AI_CLI_OUTPUT_DIR.
--no-preview takes priority over AI_CLI_PREVIEW.

Example shell profile

bash

export AI_GATEWAY_API_KEY="gw_..."
export AI_CLI_TEXT_MODEL="anthropic/claude-sonnet-4"
export AI_CLI_IMAGE_MODEL="bfl/flux-2-pro"
export AI_CLI_OUTPUT_DIR="$HOME/ai-output"