Model providers overview

The model providers feature provides Buildkite Agents with direct access to large language models (LLMs) through the Buildkite platform, enabling AI-powered workflows within your CI/CD environment. This feature provides secure, integrated access to LLMs, also known as models or AI models, without requiring separate infrastructure setup.

Local AI coding tools operate in isolation with limited context and no connection to your actual build environment. Model providers solve this by bringing AI capabilities directly into your pipelines, where they have access to:

  • Build logs, artifacts, and pipeline history
  • Organizational security policies and audit trails
  • Real-time build context for informed decision-making

Once you have connected your Buildkite organization to a model provider, your AI agents can then respond to build failures from Buildkite pipelines, optimize performance, and improve your pipelines automatically. Every step of your software delivery process can benefit from AI that understands your actual build context.

Connect to a model provider

Connecting your Buildkite organization to an AI model through the Buildkite platform can only be done by Buildkite organization administrators.

Currently, only Anthropic models are supported.

To connect to a model provider:

  1. Select Settings in the global navigation to access the to access the Organization Settings page.

  2. Select Integrations > Model Providers to access your organization's Model Providers page.

  3. In All Providers, select the model provider to enable for your organization.

  4. Choose your Authentication Method—Buildkite Hosted Token or Bring Your Own Token (BYO), depending on your security requirements and preferences.

    Your pipelines can then authenticate using existing Buildkite job tokens, which are accessible through the environment variable $BUILDKITE_AGENT_ACCESS_TOKEN.

Learn more about integrating the Anthropic model on the Anthropic model provider page.

Buildkite hosted token

With the Buildkite Hosted Token authentication option, you can start using AI models immediately. Buildkite handles the infrastructure and authentication, and therefore, there's no need to:

  • Create accounts with model providers.
  • Manage API keys or secrets.
  • Configure additional infrastructure.

The Buildkite hosted token authentication option is only available to customers on the Pro and Enterprise plans.

Bring your own token

For organizations with existing model provider relationships or specific security requirements, the Bring Your Own Token (BYO) authentication option lets you:

  • Use your own API keys with AI model providers.
  • Maintain direct billing relationships.
  • Control API access and quotas.
  • Benefit from Buildkite's usage tracking and integration.

Once configured, integrate AI capabilities into your build workflows using the Buildkite Agent API.

When using this authentication method option, remember to use existing Buildkite job tokens to authenticate the Buildkite Agent to your model provider, and not your model provider's API access token.

Buildkite model provider API endpoints

Once your model provider has been connected, your Buildkite Agents can then interact directly with your connected model through the Buildkite model provider API endpoints, which are based on this URL:

http://agent.buildkite.com/v3/ai

Or, using the $BUILDKITE_AGENT_ENDPOINT environment variable:

$BUILDKITE_AGENT_ENDPOINT/ai

Therefore, to interact with a specific model provider, such as Anthropic, append its name to the end of this model provider API endpoint:

$BUILDKITE_AGENT_ENDPOINT/ai/anthropic

Monitoring usage

To track your Buildkite organization's AI model usage through the Buildkite interface:

  1. Select Settings in the global navigation to access the to access the Organization Settings page.

  2. Select Usage to access your Buildkite organization's usage Usage > Summary page.

  3. Select the Model Providers / Hosted Models tab to view your model provider usage.