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Getting Started

Installation

Download the latest binary for your platform from GitHub Releases and place it somewhere on your $PATH:

tar xzf smelt-*.tar.gz
sudo mv smelt /usr/local/bin/

cargo install --git https://github.com/leonardcser/smelt.git

Or clone and build locally:

git clone https://github.com/leonardcser/smelt.git
cd smelt
cargo install --path .

First-Time Setup

Just run smelt. It will create ~/.config/smelt/config.yaml and you're ready to go.

You can also skip the wizard and connect directly with CLI flags.

Local Models (Ollama)

ollama pull qwen3.5:0.8b
smelt --model qwen3.5:0.8b --api-base http://localhost:11434/v1

Any server that speaks the OpenAI chat completions API works: Ollama, vLLM, SGLang, llama.cpp.

Cloud Providers

read -s OPENAI_API_KEY && export OPENAI_API_KEY
smelt --model gpt-5.4 \
      --api-base https://api.openai.com/v1 \
      --api-key-env OPENAI_API_KEY

No API key needed — authenticate with your ChatGPT Pro/Plus subscription:

smelt auth   # log in via browser OAuth
smelt --model gpt-5.4

The Codex provider uses OAuth to connect to your ChatGPT subscription. Tokens are stored locally and refreshed automatically.

read -s ANTHROPIC_API_KEY && export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY
smelt --model claude-opus-4-6 \
      --api-base https://api.anthropic.com/v1 \
      --api-key-env ANTHROPIC_API_KEY

read -s OPENROUTER_API_KEY && export OPENROUTER_API_KEY
smelt --model anthropic/claude-sonnet-4-6 \
      --api-base https://openrouter.ai/api/v1 \
      --api-key-env OPENROUTER_API_KEY

Writing a Config File

Once you have a setup you like, save it to ~/.config/smelt/config.yaml so you don't need CLI flags every time:

providers:
  - name: ollama
    type: openai-compatible
    api_base: http://localhost:11434/v1
    models:
      - qwen3.5:27b

  - name: openai
    type: openai
    api_base: https://api.openai.com/v1
    api_key_env: OPENAI_API_KEY
    models:
      - gpt-5.4

  - name: anthropic
    type: openai-compatible
    api_base: https://api.anthropic.com/v1
    api_key_env: ANTHROPIC_API_KEY
    models:
      - claude-opus-4-6

defaults:
  model: ollama/qwen3.5:27b # provider_name/model_name

Now just run smelt — it connects to your default model automatically. Switch models at runtime with /model. See the Configuration Reference for all options.

Next Steps