shannon/docs/ai-providers.md

AI Providers

One model runs the entire scan — pre-recon, recon, vulnerability analysis, exploitation, and reporting. A single setting names both the provider and the model:

export SHANNON_AI_MODEL=<provider>:<model-id>

The provider half decides where the request goes, which credential is used, and which API dialect is spoken. You never configure those separately.

Supported providers

Provider	Value	Credential
Anthropic	anthropic	SHANNON_AI_API_KEY (or CLAUDE_CODE_OAUTH_TOKEN)
OpenAI	openai	SHANNON_AI_API_KEY
xAI	xai	SHANNON_AI_API_KEY
AWS Bedrock	amazon-bedrock	AWS_REGION and AWS_BEARER_TOKEN_BEDROCK

SHANNON_AI_API_KEY holds the key for whichever provider SHANNON_AI_MODEL names. Bedrock is the exception — it authenticates through its AWS_ variables only. If SHANNON_AI_MODEL is unset, Shannon uses anthropic:claude-sonnet-4-6.

Anthropic, OpenAI, and xAI also accept their native variables (ANTHROPIC_API_KEY, OPENAI_API_KEY, XAI_API_KEY); if one of those is set, it is used instead of SHANNON_AI_API_KEY.

Shannon forwards only the selected provider's credential into the scan container. Keys for other providers stay on your machine.

Any other provider

Shannon accepts any provider and model present in the Pi harness catalogue. Browse them at pi.dev/models. These are technically supported but not recommended. Claude models are best-supported (see the note below).

export SHANNON_AI_API_KEY=your-api-key                 # the provider's API key
export SHANNON_AI_MODEL=openrouter:moonshotai/kimi-k3  # <provider>:<model-id>

This path covers providers whose credential is a single API key. Providers that need more than that are not currently supported.

npx @keygraph/shannon setup exposes this as the Other provider option.

Important

Claude models are the best-supported option. Shannon's evaluations, internal testing, and agent harness are tuned for Claude. Other models are permitted and validated against the harness catalogue, but may not follow Shannon's instructions or tool-use constraints as reliably. Use them at your own risk.

Cyber safeguards (do this before your first scan)

Anthropic and OpenAI both apply real-time safeguards to cyber-security workloads. Shannon is exactly such a workload. If a safeguard engages mid-run, the model can refuse, and the scan fails partway through rather than at the start.

Review each vendor's guidance and complete the verification or enrollment they ask of legitimate security testers before running Shannon:

• Anthropic - Real-time cyber safeguards on Claude Opus and Sonnet
• OpenAI - Cyber

This applies to the Anthropic and OpenAI providers, including when either is reached through a gateway. Bedrock serves Claude models and is subject to Anthropic's safeguards as well.

Suggested models

These are the models npx @keygraph/shannon setup offers, best-first. They are suggestions: the wizard also takes a typed model ID, and SHANNON_AI_MODEL accepts any model in the provider's catalogue.

Provider	Suggested model IDs
anthropic	claude-sonnet-4-6, claude-opus-4-8, claude-opus-4-7, claude-haiku-4-5-20251001
openai	gpt-5.6-sol, gpt-5.5, gpt-5.4
xai	grok-4.5
amazon-bedrock	us.anthropic.claude-sonnet-4-6, us.anthropic.claude-opus-4-8, us.anthropic.claude-opus-4-7

Bedrock IDs are region-prefixed and must be enabled in your account, so the ID that works for you may differ from the one listed here.

Switching provider

The pattern is learned once: export the provider's key, name the model. Two lines change, nothing else.

Anthropic (default):

export SHANNON_AI_API_KEY=sk-ant-...
export SHANNON_AI_MODEL=anthropic:claude-sonnet-4-6

OpenAI:

export SHANNON_AI_API_KEY=sk-...
export SHANNON_AI_MODEL=openai:gpt-5.6-sol

xAI:

export SHANNON_AI_API_KEY=xai-...
export SHANNON_AI_MODEL=xai:grok-4.5

Source-build mode reads the same variables from a .env file.

AWS Bedrock

Run npx @keygraph/shannon setup and select AWS Bedrock, or export directly:

export AWS_REGION=us-east-1
export AWS_BEARER_TOKEN_BEDROCK=your-bearer-token
export SHANNON_AI_MODEL=amazon-bedrock:us.anthropic.claude-opus-4-8

Bedrock uses bearer-token authentication only. IAM access keys, session tokens, assumed roles, and instance profiles are not supported. The model must be enabled in your region.

Custom base URL

To route model traffic through your own infrastructure — a corporate proxy, an LLM gateway such as LiteLLM, or a regional endpoint — set a base URL alongside your normal model selection. The provider half of SHANNON_AI_MODEL decides which key is sent and which API Shannon speaks, so pick the one your gateway serves:

Gateway serves	Model prefix	API key
Anthropic Messages	anthropic:	SHANNON_AI_API_KEY
OpenAI Chat Completions	openai:	SHANNON_AI_API_KEY
OpenAI Responses	openai: + SHANNON_AI_OPENAI_FORMAT=responses	SHANNON_AI_API_KEY

The model ID is whatever name your gateway serves it under; it does not have to exist in Shannon's catalogue.

Anthropic Messages:

export SHANNON_AI_API_KEY=sk-ant-...
export SHANNON_AI_MODEL=anthropic:claude-sonnet-4-6
export SHANNON_AI_BASE_URL=https://llm-gateway.example.com

OpenAI Chat Completions:

export SHANNON_AI_API_KEY=sk-...
export SHANNON_AI_MODEL=openai:gpt-5.6-sol
export SHANNON_AI_BASE_URL=https://llm-gateway.example.com/v1

SHANNON_AI_MODEL is always <provider>:<model-id>, gateway or not.

OpenAI is the one provider serving two APIs, so a gateway run picks one:

export SHANNON_AI_OPENAI_FORMAT=responses          # default: chat-completions

Chat Completions is the default because that is what most gateway software exposes. Set responses for a gateway that passes the Responses API through — it preserves reasoning state between turns, which Chat Completions cannot. openai:gpt-5 with no base URL always calls OpenAI's Responses API directly.

The variable is rejected in preflight where it cannot take effect: with a non-openai model, since Anthropic, xAI, and Bedrock each serve one API, and with no SHANNON_AI_BASE_URL, since a direct OpenAI run is always Responses.

npx @keygraph/shannon setup covers this under Custom Base URL, which asks which API your gateway serves and configures the matching provider for you.

Validation

Checks run before a scan starts, so mistakes fail immediately rather than partway through a run:

• Provider and model ID — validated against the Pi harness catalogue. An unknown provider or model ID fails preflight with a pointer to pi.dev/models. A custom base URL exempts the model ID, since a gateway may serve its own names.
• Credential presence — always validated for the selected provider.
• Credential validity — one minimal request against the model the scan will use, so a rejected key, an exhausted quota, or a model the account cannot reach fails before any agent runs. Bedrock included: its bearer token and region go through the same probe.

Migrating from the three-tier configuration

Earlier versions took three model variables. They no longer do anything — replace them with SHANNON_AI_MODEL.

Before	Now
ANTHROPIC_SMALL_MODEL, ANTHROPIC_MEDIUM_MODEL, ANTHROPIC_LARGE_MODEL	a single SHANNON_AI_MODEL
CLAUDE_CODE_USE_BEDROCK=1 plus three Bedrock model IDs	SHANNON_AI_MODEL=amazon-bedrock:<model-id>
ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL + ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN selected a provider	SHANNON_AI_BASE_URL overrides the endpoint; SHANNON_AI_MODEL selects the provider

In ~/.shannon/config.toml, the [models] section and bedrock.use are gone, each provider has its own section, and the model lives at core.model:

[core]
model = "anthropic:claude-sonnet-4-6"
# base_url = "https://llm-gateway.example.com"

[anthropic]
api_key = "your-api-key"

Re-run npx @keygraph/shannon setup to regenerate the file.