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AI Assistants

You must configure at least one AI assistant. Both can be configured if desired.

Recommended for Claude Pro/Max subscribers.

Claude Code supports three authentication modes via CLAUDE_USE_GLOBAL_AUTH:

  1. Global Auth (set to true): Uses credentials from claude /login
  2. Explicit Tokens (set to false): Uses tokens from env vars below
  3. Auto-Detect (not set): Uses tokens if present in env, otherwise global auth
CLAUDE_USE_GLOBAL_AUTH=true
Terminal window
# Install Claude Code CLI first: https://docs.claude.com/claude-code/installation
claude setup-token
# Copy the token starting with sk-ant-oat01-...
CLAUDE_CODE_OAUTH_TOKEN=sk-ant-oat01-xxxxx
  1. Visit console.anthropic.com/settings/keys
  2. Create a new key (starts with sk-ant-)
CLAUDE_API_KEY=sk-ant-xxxxx

You can configure Claude’s behavior in .archon/config.yaml:

assistants:
claude:
model: sonnet # or 'opus', 'haiku', 'claude-*', 'inherit'
settingSources:
- project # Default: only project-level CLAUDE.md
- user # Optional: also load ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md

The settingSources option controls which CLAUDE.md files the Claude Code SDK loads. By default, only the project-level CLAUDE.md is loaded. Add user to also load your personal ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md.

If you want Claude to be the default AI assistant for new conversations without codebase context, set this environment variable:

DEFAULT_AI_ASSISTANT=claude
Terminal window
# Install Codex CLI first: https://docs.codex.com/installation
codex login
# Follow browser authentication flow

On Linux/Mac:

Terminal window
cat ~/.codex/auth.json

On Windows:

Terminal window
type %USERPROFILE%\.codex\auth.json

Set all four environment variables in your .env:

CODEX_ID_TOKEN=eyJhbGc...
CODEX_ACCESS_TOKEN=eyJhbGc...
CODEX_REFRESH_TOKEN=rt_...
CODEX_ACCOUNT_ID=6a6a7ba6-...

You can configure Codex’s behavior in .archon/config.yaml:

assistants:
codex:
model: gpt-5.3-codex
modelReasoningEffort: medium # 'minimal' | 'low' | 'medium' | 'high' | 'xhigh'
webSearchMode: live # 'disabled' | 'cached' | 'live'
additionalDirectories:
- /absolute/path/to/other/repo

If you want Codex to be the default AI assistant for new conversations without codebase context, set this environment variable:

DEFAULT_AI_ASSISTANT=codex
  • Assistant type is set per codebase via the assistant field in .archon/config.yaml or the DEFAULT_AI_ASSISTANT env var
  • Once a conversation starts, the assistant type is locked for that conversation
  • DEFAULT_AI_ASSISTANT (optional) is used only for new conversations without codebase context
  • Workflows can override the assistant on a per-node basis with provider and model fields
  • Configuration priority: workflow-level options > config file defaults > SDK defaults