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Connect desktop chat apps to Smouter

Add Smouter as an OpenAI-compatible provider in Jan, Chatbox, Msty, Cherry Studio, AnythingLLM, Open WebUI, and similar desktop clients.

What you need

  • Base URL: https://api.smouter.ai/v1 — the /v1 suffix matters; leaving it off is the most common setup failure.
  • API key: an sk-smouter-… secret from API keys. It is shown once at creation — if you lost it, create a new key.
  • Model id: copied exactly from the live catalog (or GET /v1/models). Ids are matched verbatim — no vendor prefixes, no renaming.

Point a desktop chat app at Smouter

Most desktop chat clients accept custom OpenAI-compatible providers, and the flow is the same everywhere: open the app's provider/model settings, add an OpenAI-compatible provider, paste the three values, then register each model id you want to chat with.

Provider type   OpenAI-compatible   (a.k.a. "custom provider")Base URL        https://api.smouter.ai/v1API key         sk-smouter-…        (create at smouter.ai/app/keys)Model id        exactly as listed at smouter.ai/models
  • Jan — Settings → Model Providers → add an OpenAI-compatible provider.
  • Chatbox — Settings → Model Provider → add a custom (OpenAI-API-compatible) provider.
  • Msty — Settings → Remote Model Providers → add an OpenAI-compatible remote provider.
  • Cherry Studio — Settings → Model Provider → add a provider with the OpenAI format.
  • AnythingLLM — Settings → AI Providers → LLM → Generic OpenAI.
  • Open WebUI — Admin settings → Connections → add an OpenAI-API connection.

Menu names drift between releases — any settings screen asking for an OpenAI(-compatible) base URL, key, and model name takes these values.

One boundary to know: the consumer Claude Desktop and ChatGPT Desktop apps are tied to their vendors' own accounts and do not accept custom endpoints — use one of the clients above to chat with Smouter models on the desktop. For coding, the Claude Code and Codex CLI guides cover the desktop variants of those tools.

Verify outside the tool first

Two commands separate a Smouter problem from a tool problem. If both succeed, your key, credit, and model id are fine — whatever remains is the tool's configuration.

# Which model ids can I use right now? (no auth needed)curl -s https://api.smouter.ai/v1/models | jq -r '.data[].id'

If it doesn't work

  • Base URL wrong or missing /v1. OpenAI-style tools need exactly https://api.smouter.ai/v1 — no trailing /chat/completions, no bare api.smouter.ai. Anthropic-style tools (Claude Code) use https://api.smouter.ai with no suffix.
  • 401 auth — the key was pasted wrong, expired, or revoked. Secrets are shown once; create a fresh key in API keys and paste it whole, including the sk-smouter- prefix.
  • 402 insufficient_quota — your wallet or a per-key cap can't cover the request. Top up in Billing or raise the key's cap.
  • 404 model_not_found — the id doesn't match the catalog. Copy it verbatim from the catalog; ids are case-sensitive and carry no openai/-style prefix (where a tool requires one, the tool strips it before sending).
  • 429 — a rate or tokens-per-minute window is exhausted. Honor retry-after; per-key TPM is adjustable in API keys.
  • Scoped key. If the key has a model allowlist, every model the tool may call — including fallbacks — must be on it. When in doubt, test with an unscoped key.
  • The tool's UI moved. Settings get renamed; the three constants don't. Any field asking for an OpenAI(-compatible) base URL, key, and model name takes the values above.

Still stuck? Open a ticket with the request's x-request-id (or the error body) and we'll trace it — or email support@smouter.ai.