Connect AI Providers and Models to Your Bot

Freesona supports seven AI providers that all work with the same commands. Whether you use /ask, /write, /search, a conversation channel, or autonomy mode, the experience is identical regardless of which provider is active. Set your preferred provider at startup with environment variables, or switch to a different provider at any time without restarting the bot.

Supported Providers

Provider	`AI_PROVIDER` value	Required environment variable(s)
Google Gemini	`gemini`	`GOOGLE_API_KEY`
OpenAI	`openai`	`OPENAI_API_KEY`
Ollama (local)	`ollama`	`OLLAMA_BASE_URL`
NVIDIA NIM	`nim`	`NVIDIA_API_KEY`
Azure AI Foundry	`azure`	`AZURE_AI_KEY` + `AZURE_AI_BASE_URL`
Groq	`groq`	`GROQ_API_KEY`
OpenRouter	`openrouter`	`OPENROUTER_API_KEY`

Setting the Provider at Startup

Set AI_PROVIDER in your .env file to the provider value from the table above, then add the matching credentials. Set MODEL_NAME (or AI_PROVIDER_MODEL) to specify the default model for that provider.

AI_PROVIDER=gemini
GOOGLE_API_KEY=your_gemini_api_key
MODEL_NAME=gemini-flash-lite-latest

AI_PROVIDER=openai
OPENAI_API_KEY=your_openai_api_key
AI_PROVIDER_MODEL=gpt-4o-mini
# Optional: override the endpoint (e.g. for a proxy)
OPENAI_BASE_URL=https://api.openai.com/v1/chat/completions

AI_PROVIDER=ollama
OLLAMA_BASE_URL=http://localhost:11434/api/chat
AI_PROVIDER_MODEL=llama3.1
# No API key required — Ollama runs locally

AI_PROVIDER=nim
NVIDIA_API_KEY=your_nvidia_api_key
NVIDIA_NIM_BASE_URL=https://integrate.api.nvidia.com/v1/chat/completions
AI_PROVIDER_MODEL=meta/llama-3.1-8b-instruct

AI_PROVIDER=azure
AZURE_AI_KEY=your_azure_ai_key
AZURE_AI_BASE_URL=https://your-resource.openai.azure.com/openai/deployments/your-deployment/chat/completions?api-version=2024-02-01
AI_PROVIDER_MODEL=gpt-4o-mini

AI_PROVIDER=groq
GROQ_API_KEY=your_groq_api_key
GROQ_BASE_URL=https://api.groq.com/openai/v1/chat/completions
AI_PROVIDER_MODEL=llama-3.3-70b-versatile

AI_PROVIDER=openrouter
OPENROUTER_API_KEY=your_openrouter_api_key
OPENROUTER_BASE_URL=https://openrouter.ai/api/v1/chat/completions
AI_PROVIDER_MODEL=meta-llama/llama-3.3-70b-instruct:free
# Optional: attribution headers
OPENROUTER_SITE_URL=https://your-site.example.com
OPENROUTER_SITE_NAME=Freesona

Switching Providers at Runtime

Change the active provider from Discord without editing .env or restarting. All provider commands are restricted to the Bot Owner.

Command	What it does
`/provider show`	Display the currently active provider
`/provider set <name>`	Switch to a different provider immediately
`/provider reset`	Revert to the provider value set in `.env`

The <name> argument accepts the same values as AI_PROVIDER — gemini, openai, ollama, nim, azure, groq, or openrouter.

Switching Models at Runtime

Override the active model independently of the provider, also without a restart.

Command	What it does
`/model show`	Display the currently active model
`/model set <name>`	Switch to a different model name
`/model reset`	Revert to the model defined in `.env`

Use /model set to test different models on the same provider before committing a choice to your .env file. Use /model reset to snap back to your default after experimenting.

Multimodal Input

Attach files to any AI command or conversation channel message and the bot will read them alongside your text prompt. Supported file types include:

Images: PNG, JPEG, WEBP, GIF, HEIC, HEIF
Documents: PDF, plain text, Markdown, CSV, HTML, RTF, XML
Code: JavaScript, Python
Audio: MP3, WAV, AAC, OGG, FLAC, AIFF
Video: MP4, MOV, AVI, WEBM, WMV, 3GPP, MPEG

Multimodal input is fully supported on Gemini. Non-Gemini providers receive text-only input — attached files are silently ignored on providers that don’t support multimodal processing.

Notes on Specific Providers

Google Gemini

Gemini is the default provider and the only one that supports server-side conversation continuity. Each user’s conversation thread is tracked via Gemini’s Interactions API using previous_interaction_id, scoped to (guild_id, channel_id, user_id) so one user’s thread never bleeds into another’s in the same channel. All other providers remain stateless and rely on the persona and long-term memory injection for context.

Ollama

Ollama runs entirely on your own machine — no API key is required. Set OLLAMA_BASE_URL to the address where your Ollama server is listening (default: http://localhost:11434/api/chat) and set AI_PROVIDER_MODEL to the name of a model you’ve already pulled locally.

OpenRouter

Set OPENROUTER_SITE_URL and OPENROUTER_SITE_NAME in your .env to send attribution headers with each request. OpenRouter uses these to identify your application in usage dashboards and to comply with certain model provider policies.

​Supported Providers

​Setting the Provider at Startup

​Switching Providers at Runtime

​Switching Models at Runtime

​Multimodal Input

​Notes on Specific Providers

Supported Providers

Setting the Provider at Startup

Switching Providers at Runtime

Switching Models at Runtime

Multimodal Input

Notes on Specific Providers