Minimal

This is the smallest practical personal setup: one provider, one key, and one model pool. The YAML fills in a current flagship so every field is present; pick the model you will actually run in Choosing models.

Create the two files below and set the environment variable to your own key. Add other features after confirming the model connects.

The same configuration is available as a ready-to-copy file: anthropic-minimal.yaml.

~/.config/chord/auth.yaml

anthropic:
  - "$ANTHROPIC_API_KEY"

~/.config/chord/config.yaml

providers:
  anthropic:
    type: messages
    api_url: https://api.anthropic.com/v1/messages
    models:
      claude-opus-5:
        limit:
          context: 1000000
          output: 128000
        thinking:
          type: adaptive
          effort: medium
          display: summarized
        modalities:
          input: [text, image, pdf]

model_pools:
  default:
    - anthropic/claude-opus-5

context:
  compaction:
    threshold: 0.8
desktop_notification: true
log_level: info

Use this when you want to verify provider connectivity, credentials, basic chat flow, and conversation compaction with the smallest working config.

Credentials to prepare

Set ANTHROPIC_API_KEY in your shell or replace the environment-variable reference in auth.yaml with a real key stored outside the repository.

Verify

chord doctor models --model anthropic/claude-opus-5

Common failures

• 401 / 403: the key is missing, expired, or not visible in the environment where Chord runs.
• 404 / model not found: the model name is not enabled on your Anthropic account.
• Context-limit errors: update limit.context, limit.input, and limit.output to match your provider account’s published limits.