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AI Edition

The AI edition of starkite adds the ai module (multi-provider LLM client) and the mcp module (Model Context Protocol server + client) to the base edition. Every base module remains available. It ships as the standalone kiteai binary, and is also bundled into the all-in-one kite binary.

Installation

# Build from source — produces ./bin/kiteai
make build-ai

# Or install via the edition manager (downloads from GitHub Releases)
kitecmd edition use ai

If you have the all-in-one kite binary installed, you already have the ai modules — no separate install needed.

Provider Credentials

The AI edition supports Anthropic, OpenAI, Google AI, and Ollama. Set the relevant environment variable for any provider you plan to use:

Provider Env var Notes
Anthropic ANTHROPIC_API_KEY claude-3-5-sonnet, claude-opus, etc.
OpenAI OPENAI_API_KEY gpt-4o, gpt-4o-mini, etc.
Google AI GOOGLE_API_KEY gemini-1.5-pro, gemini-flash, etc.
Ollama (none) Local; default endpoint http://localhost:11434. Override with ai.config(base_urls={"ollama": "..."}) or per-call base_url=

You can also configure credentials in a script via ai.config() — useful for scripts that manage their own credentials:

ai.config(api_keys = {"openai": env("MY_OPENAI_KEY")})

Quick Start

The fastest path to verifying the install uses Ollama (no API key required):

# hello-ai.star
resp = ai.generate("Say hi in 5 words.", model="ollama/llama3.2")
print(resp.text)

kiteai run hello-ai.star

Or with Anthropic once ANTHROPIC_API_KEY is set:

resp = ai.generate("Say hi in 5 words.", model="anthropic/claude-sonnet-4-5")
print(resp.text)

Model Strings

Every call identifies the backend by a provider/model-name string:

ai.generate(prompt, model="anthropic/claude-sonnet-4-5")
ai.generate(prompt, model="openai/gpt-4o-mini")
ai.generate(prompt, model="googleai/gemini-1.5-pro")
ai.generate(prompt, model="ollama/llama3.2")

Set a default so you don't have to repeat it:

ai.config(default_model="anthropic/claude-sonnet-4-5")
resp = ai.generate("...")  # uses the default

What's Included

Module Purpose Reference
ai Multi-provider LLM client (generate, chat, tools, agents) ai module reference
mcp MCP server (expose Starlark tools over stdio or HTTP) + client (call remote MCP servers) mcp module reference

All 27 modules from the base edition (os, fs, http, ssh, json, yaml, concur, etc.) remain available. Agents typically compose ai.chat() with these for tool implementations — see the agents guide.

Editions Management

kitecmd edition status        # List installed editions
kitecmd edition use ai        # Install AI edition (downloads kiteai)
kitecmd edition use base      # Switch back to base
kitecmd edition remove ai     # Uninstall AI edition

When ai is active, kitecmd transparently execs into kiteai for every command.

Next Steps