Function: providerFromEnv()

providerFromEnv(opts?): ProviderFromEnv

Defined in: src/adapters/llm/createProvider.ts:208

Resolve an LLMProvider from environment variables — drop your company's values in .env and the right provider is configured automatically, with no code branching. (Node only — reads process.env; the vendor SDK is lazy-loaded only for the detected provider.)

Detection order (first match wins):

1. Ollama (local) — OLLAMA_MODEL names a model, e.g. qwen3 [+ OLLAMA_HOST for a runtime that isn't on localhost]
2. Foundry Local (local) — FOUNDRY_LOCAL_MODEL names a model, e.g. qwen2.5-0.5b [+ FOUNDRY_LOCAL_ENDPOINT | FOUNDRY_LOCAL_BASE_URL when the service isn't on the docs' example port]
3. Foundry (project) — FOUNDRY_PROJECT_ENDPOINT
   • (AZURE_AI_MODEL_DEPLOYMENT_NAME | MODEL_NAME); the returned model is the deployment you named. Auth is whatever foundry() resolves — inside a hosted Foundry container that is managed identity with zero further configuration. The endpoint with NO deployment named does not match: this arm steps aside, every arm below gets its normal turn, and Foundry's refusal is raised only if none of them resolves.
4. Azure OpenAI — AZURE_OPENAI_API_KEY + (AZURE_OPENAI_ENDPOINT | OPENAI_BASE_URL) + AZURE_OPENAI_API_VERSION
   • (AZURE_OPENAI_DEPLOYMENT | MODEL_NAME). AZURE_OPENAI_ENDPOINT and OPENAI_BASE_URL are two spellings of the same resource root and reach the identical URL; the returned model is the deployment you named.
5. Anthropic — ANTHROPIC_API_KEY
6. OpenAI — OPENAI_API_KEY Otherwise throws (or returns the mock when { fallbackToMock: true }).

Why the local models go first. The credential arms trigger on a CREDENTIAL, and credentials arrive in a shell by accident all the time — a key exported in .zshrc two months ago for something else. OLLAMA_MODEL and FOUNDRY_LOCAL_MODEL trigger on a NAME you had to choose and type, so their presence is a declaration rather than a leftover: someone who writes OLLAMA_MODEL=qwen3 has said which model they want this run to use, and honoring the cloud key instead would both ignore them and cost them money. (OLLAMA_HOST alone is NOT a trigger — people export it just to run Ollama, and it must not hijack an app that never asked for a local model. The same holds for FOUNDRY_LOCAL_ENDPOINT / FOUNDRY_LOCAL_BASE_URL.)

Why Foundry sits between the names and the keys. FOUNDRY_PROJECT_ENDPOINT is a product-specific spelling nobody exports by accident — and the one the hosted Foundry platform AUTO-INJECTS into its containers — so where it is present AND a deployment is named, Foundry is the declared destination and it outranks the lingering-credential arms below. It still yields to the two local-model arms: precisely because the platform can inject it, it must never beat a model name a person typed for THIS run.

Why an endpoint alone never breaks your boot. That same injection cuts the other way. A hosted Foundry container whose agent calls Anthropic — the shape this project's own hosting adapter ships for — receives the endpoint whether or not anyone asked for Foundry INFERENCE, and it names no deployment. So an endpoint with no deployment is not a throw: the arm holds its refusal, and Azure, Anthropic, OpenAI and fallbackToMock all run exactly as they did before this arm existed. The held refusal surfaces only when the environment declares nothing else at all — where it is the most useful message there is, because the endpoint is then the only clue.

No probing. This function reads environment variables and nothing else. It never opens a socket to see whether a daemon is up — its answer stays deterministic, instant, and identical on a laptop and in CI. If OLLAMA_MODEL is set and the daemon is down, you get the provider, and the refusal arrives from the call itself with ollama serve in the message.

Parameters

opts?

fallbackToMock?

boolean

Returns

ProviderFromEnv

Example

import { providerFromEnv } from 'agentfootprint';
  const { provider, model, kind } = providerFromEnv({ fallbackToMock: true });
  const agent = Agent.create({ provider, model }).build();