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Documentation Index

Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://mintlify.com/NVIDIA/OpenShell/llms.txt

Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

AI agents typically need credentials to access external services: an API key for the model provider, a token for GitHub or GitLab, and so on. OpenShell manages these credentials as first-class entities called providers. A provider is a named credential bundle. When you attach a provider to a sandbox, the gateway injects its credentials into the sandbox as environment variables at startup. Credentials never touch the sandbox filesystem.
When the trailing command in openshell sandbox create is a recognized tool name (claude, codex, or opencode), the CLI auto-creates the required provider from your local environment if one does not already exist. You do not need to create the provider separately.

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Create a provider

The fastest way to create a provider is to let the CLI discover credentials from your shell environment:
openshell provider create --name my-claude --type claude --from-existing
This reads ANTHROPIC_API_KEY or CLAUDE_API_KEY from your current environment and stores them in the provider.

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Attach providers to sandboxes

Pass one or more --provider flags when creating a sandbox: 
openshell sandbox create --provider my-claude --provider my-github -- claude
Each --provider flag attaches one provider. The sandbox receives all credentials from every attached provider at runtime.
Providers cannot be added to a running sandbox. If you need to attach an additional provider, delete the sandbox and recreate it with all required providers specified.

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Manage providers

1

List all providers

openshell provider list
2

Inspect a provider

openshell provider get my-claude
3

Update a provider's credentials

openshell provider update my-claude --from-existing
4

Delete a provider

openshell provider delete my-claude

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Supported provider types

The following provider types are supported. The --from-existing flag reads the listed environment variables from your current shell.
TypeEnvironment variables injectedTypical use
claudeANTHROPIC_API_KEY, CLAUDE_API_KEYClaude Code, Anthropic API
codexOPENAI_API_KEYOpenAI Codex
genericUser-definedAny service with custom credentials
githubGITHUB_TOKEN, GH_TOKENGitHub API, gh CLI
gitlabGITLAB_TOKEN, GLAB_TOKEN, CI_JOB_TOKENGitLab API, glab CLI
nvidiaNVIDIA_API_KEYNVIDIA API Catalog
openaiOPENAI_API_KEYAny OpenAI-compatible endpoint
opencodeOPENCODE_API_KEY, OPENROUTER_API_KEY, OPENAI_API_KEYopencode tool
Use the generic type for any service not listed above. You define the environment variable names and values yourself with --credential.

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Security model

Credentials are stored in the gateway — not on disk in the sandbox. The gateway injects them as environment variables at sandbox startup. This means:
  • A compromised sandbox process cannot read credentials by scanning the filesystem.
  • Credentials are purged when the sandbox is deleted.
  • Providers can only be attached at sandbox creation time, not after the fact.

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Supported inference providers

The following providers have been tested with inference.local. Any provider that exposes an OpenAI-compatible API works with the openai type. Set --config OPENAI_BASE_URL to the provider’s base URL.
ProviderNameTypeBase URL
NVIDIA API Catalognvidia-prodnvidiahttps://integrate.api.nvidia.com/v1
Anthropicanthropic-prodanthropichttps://api.anthropic.com
Basetenbasetenopenaihttps://inference.baseten.co/v1
Bitdeer AIbitdeeropenaihttps://api-inference.bitdeer.ai/v1
Deepinfradeepinfraopenaihttps://api.deepinfra.com/v1/openai
Groqgroqopenaihttps://api.groq.com/openai/v1
Ollama (local)ollamaopenaihttp://host.openshell.internal:11434/v1
LM Studio (local)lmstudioopenaihttp://host.openshell.internal:1234/v1
To configure inference routing, refer to Configure Inference Routing.

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Next steps

Policies

Control what the agent can access on the network and filesystem.

Community sandboxes

Use a pre-built environment from the community catalog.

Policy schema reference

Full field-by-field YAML definition for sandbox policies.

GitHub sandbox tutorial

End-to-end walkthrough combining a GitHub provider with a scoped policy.

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