LLM Providers
The agent and the backend jury both expose an LLM_PROVIDER knob. This lets you choose between a free deterministic stub for plumbing tests and real Claude calls for production quality.
Modes
| Value | Agent behaviour | Backend jury | API key |
|---|---|---|---|
stub (default) | Deterministic templated responses | Deterministic scoring | None |
claude | Real Anthropic completions (one per vision) | Real 5-judge consensus | ANTHROPIC_API_KEY |
Recommended workflow
Validate the entire stack on
stub first — it's free, deterministic, and surfaces wiring bugs immediately. Switch to claude for an end-to-end quality pass once everything else is green.Wiring up Anthropic
Set both the agent's and the backend's environment to LLM_PROVIDER=claude and provide ANTHROPIC_API_KEY. Optionally override ANTHROPIC_MODEL (default claude-sonnet-4-6).
Adding another provider
The backend factory is a thin wrapper. If you ship a new provider, implement the same prompt/response interface and switch on the env var. Cost characteristics differ wildly between providers — keep an eye on the per-mission jury budget (5 judges per submission per round).