How-To: Adding Anthropic as an LLM Provider to Smarter

Goal 

Register Anthropic as an LLM provider on your organization’s Smarter platform so that Claude models are available to llm_clients, the Prompt Engineer Workbench, and developer tooling such as Claude Code.

By the end of this tutorial you will have two verified Claude models — Claude Opus and Claude Sonnet — ready for use across the platform.

Prerequisites 

Before you begin, confirm that you have:

Smarter v0.11.0 or later, deployed and accessible.
An administrator-level Smarter account with permission to manage providers.
The Smarter CLI installed and authenticated. See Smarter CLI for installation instructions.
A text editor. VS Code with the Smarter YAML extension provides autocomplete and validation for manifest files.

Note

You do not need an Anthropic API key on your personal machine. The key is configured once at the platform level and stored securely in Smarter. Individual developers never handle provider credentials directly.

Setup 

Smarter supports two categories of LLM providers.

Built-in providers are pre-initialized automatically during deployment and only require an API key in .env:

Provider	Environment Variable	API Key Console
OpenAI (required)	`SMARTER_OPENAI_API_KEY`	platform.openai.com/api-keys
GoogleAI	`SMARTER_GEMINI_API_KEY`	aistudio.google.com/app/apikey
MetaAI	`SMARTER_LLAMA_API_KEY`	console.apillm.com

Additional providers require both an API key in .env and a Provider manifest applied via the CLI:

Provider	Environment Variable	API Key Console
Anthropic	`SMARTER_ANTHROPIC_API_KEY`	console.anthropic.com
Cohere	`SMARTER_COHERE_API_KEY`	dashboard.cohere.com/api-keys
Fireworks	`SMARTER_FIREWORKS_API_KEY`	fireworks.ai/api-keys
Mistral	`SMARTER_MISTRAL_API_KEY`	console.mistral.ai/api-keys
TogetherAI	`SMARTER_TOGETHERAI_API_KEY`	together.ai/settings/api-keys

This tutorial walks through adding Anthropic as an additional provider.

Concept Overview 

Smarter manages every resource — providers, llm_clients, plugins — through declarative YAML files called SAM (Smarter API Manifests). This pattern is modeled on Kubernetes: you describe the desired state in a file and smarter apply makes it happen.

A Provider manifest has four sections:

apiVersion — always smarter.sh/v1.
kind — set to Provider.
metadata — a unique name, human-readable description, and version.
spec — the provider configuration: which backend and which model.

When you apply a manifest, Smarter registers the provider and automatically runs verification checks against the provider’s API. Once verification passes, the provider is marked active and its models become available platform-wide.

Step-by-Step 

Step 1: Obtain an Anthropic API Key 

Sign in at console.anthropic.com.
Navigate to Settings > API Keys > Create Key.
Give the key a descriptive name (e.g. smarter-napl-prod).
Copy the key immediately — it is displayed only once.

Danger

Never commit API keys to version control or share them in plain text. The key will be stored in the Smarter .env file on the server, which should be excluded from source control.

Step 2: Add the Key to the Smarter Environment 

Open the .env file at the root of your Smarter deployment and add:

SMARTER_ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-ant-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Restart the application so it picks up the new credential:

make restart

Step 3: Generate a Manifest Template 

Use the CLI to print a valid starter manifest:

smarter manifest provider

Review the output to understand the expected structure before writing your own manifests.

Step 4: Create the Provider Manifests 

Create one manifest per model. We will register two Claude models so the team can evaluate cost-versus-quality trade-offs in the Workbench.

Create a file named anthropic-opus.yaml:

apiVersion: smarter.sh/v1
kind: Provider
metadata:
  name: anthropic-opus
  description: Anthropic Claude Opus 4 - high-capability model
  version: 1.0.0
spec:
  provider:
    name: anthropic
    model: claude-opus-4-5

Create a second file named anthropic-sonnet.yaml:

apiVersion: smarter.sh/v1
kind: Provider
metadata:
  name: anthropic-sonnet
  description: Anthropic Claude Sonnet 4 - balanced speed and quality
  version: 1.0.0
spec:
  provider:
    name: anthropic
    model: claude-sonnet-4-6

Note

Model identifiers are case-sensitive and must match the names published by Anthropic exactly. For the complete manifest field reference, see Smarter API Manifests (SAM).

Step 5: Apply the Manifests 

smarter apply -f anthropic-opus.yaml
smarter apply -f anthropic-sonnet.yaml

Smarter registers each provider and begins asynchronous verification checks.

Step 6: Verify the Providers 

smarter describe provider anthropic-opus
smarter describe provider anthropic-sonnet

Look for a status section showing verified: true in each output. If the status shows pending, wait 30 seconds and run the command again — verification checks are asynchronous.

You can also confirm via the web console: open the Providers page in the left sidebar. Both anthropic-opus and anthropic-sonnet should appear with an active status indicator.

Proof of Concept 

Run the following commands to confirm end-to-end success:

smarter describe provider anthropic-opus
smarter describe provider anthropic-sonnet

Expected output for each provider (abbreviated):

apiVersion: smarter.sh/v1
kind: Provider
metadata:
  name: anthropic-opus
  description: Anthropic Claude Opus 4 - high-capability model
  version: 1.0.0
spec:
  provider:
    name: anthropic
    model: claude-opus-4-5
status:
  verified: true
  active: true

Both providers showing verified: true and active: true confirms that Smarter has established a live connection to the Anthropic API and the models are ready for use in llm_clients and the Workbench.

Tip

With both providers active, you can create two llm_clients — one backed by Opus and one by Sonnet — and compare their responses to the same prompt in the Workbench. This is a practical way to evaluate which model best fits each use case before rolling it out to the programming team.

Troubleshooting 

“API key not found” on startup: The SMARTER_ANTHROPIC_API_KEY variable is missing from .env or the application was not restarted after adding it. Run make restart.
Provider status shows “verification failed”: The API key is invalid, expired, or has been revoked. Generate a new key at console.anthropic.com and update the .env file.
“Model not found” when applying a manifest: The model value does not match the provider’s published identifier. Double-check the spelling and casing. Anthropic model names use lowercase with hyphens (e.g. claude-opus-4-5).
YAML validation errors: Indentation is almost always the cause. Run smarter manifest provider to compare your file against a known-good template. YAML requires spaces, not tabs.
Provider appears in CLI but not in the web console: Refresh the browser. If it still does not appear, confirm that your Smarter account has administrator privileges.
“billing_not_active” or rate limit errors: Your Anthropic account does not have billing configured, or the API key belongs to a free-tier account that has exhausted its quota. Add a payment method at console.anthropic.com/settings/billing.
API key starts with ``sk-ant-oat01-``: OAuth tokens (sk-ant-oat01-) are not valid for direct API calls. Ensure the key starts with sk-ant-api03-. Generate a standard API key from the Anthropic console.