Installation

Add chai-ai and a provider package to your project.

Install the core package plus whichever provider adapter(s) you need:

npm install chai-ai @chai-ai/openai @chai-ai/google @chai-ai/anthropic zod

zod is used to define tool input schemas and structured output schemas, so it's a required peer alongside chai-ai.

You only need the provider package(s) for the models you actually use — for example, install just @chai-ai/openai if you're only calling OpenAI models.

Requirements

  • Node.js with ESM support (chai-ai ships as an ES module)
  • TypeScript 5+ recommended, for full type inference on tool execute arguments and structured outputSchema results
  • Provider API credentials, set as environment variables the provider package expects (e.g. OPENAI_API_KEY, GOOGLE_GENERATIVE_AI_API_KEY, ANTHROPIC_API_KEY)

Next: Quickstart.

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