Configuration

clai stores all configuration as human-readable JSON and Markdown files inside <os.UserConfigDir()>/clai (or $CLAI_CONFIG_DIR).

Configuration directory layout

Path	Purpose
textConfig.json	Default text model, system prompt, tool truncation limits, and conversation settings.
photoConfig.json	Default photo generation model, output directory, and prompt prefix.
videoConfig.json	Default video generation model, output directory, and prompt prefix.
<vendor>_<model>.json	Per-model vendor parameters (temperature, token limits, endpoint overrides).
profiles/<name>.json	Named profile presets (model, mprompt, tools, mcpServers, save_reply_as_conv).
mcpServers/<name>.json	MCP stdio server definitions (command, args, env).
skills/<name>/SKILL.md	User-global Agent Skills.
shellContexts/<name>.json	Named shell context templates for -sc.
conversations/	Saved conversation threads and globalScope.json.
theme.json	Terminal color theme configuration.

Example textConfig.json

{
  "model": "claude-sonnet-4-6",
  "system-prompt": "You are a helpful command-line assistant.",
  "raw": false,
  "save-reply-as-conv": true,
  "tool-truncation-limit": 32768
}

Flags and environment variables

Function	Flag	Environment variable	Default
Override the active chat model	--chat-model	CLAI_CHAT_MODEL	claude-sonnet-4-6
Override the active photo model	--photo-model	CLAI_PHOTO_MODEL	dall-e-3
Override the active video model	--video-model	CLAI_VIDEO_MODEL	veo-3.0-generate-preview
Load a named profile from profiles/	--profile	CLAI_PROFILE	none
Load a profile JSON file by path	--profile-path	CLAI_PROFILE_PATH	none
Enable builtin tools or pass a glob	--tools	CLAI_TOOLS	none
Fail immediately if an MCP server fails	--mcp-strict	CLAI_MCP_STRICT	none
Print raw unformatted output without ANSI	--raw	NO_COLOR	none
Minimum log level	--log-level	LOG_LEVEL	info
Override the clai configuration directory	none	CLAI_CONFIG_DIR	<user-config-dir>/clai
Override the clai cache directory	none	CLAI_CACHE_DIR	<user-cache-dir>/clai
clai.chat cloud sync token (Preview)	none	CLAI_TOKEN	none

Vendor API key variables

Variable	Purpose
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY	API key for Anthropic Claude models.
OPENAI_API_KEY	API key for OpenAI models.
GEMINI_API_KEY	API key for Google Gemini models.
MISTRAL_API_KEY	API key for Mistral models.
DEEPSEEK_API_KEY	API key for DeepSeek models.
XAI_API_KEY	API key for XAI Grok models.
OPENROUTER_API_KEY	API key for OpenRouter models.
DEBUG	Enable verbose debug logging when set to any non-empty value.
DEBUG_CALL_ID	Print tool call IDs in terminal output when set.