add-provider-package

Adding a New Provider Package

This guide covers the process of creating a new @ai-sdk/<provider> package to integrate an AI service into the AI SDK.

First-Party vs Third-Party Providers

• Third-party packages: Any provider can create a third-party package. We're happy to link to it from our documentation.
• First-party @ai-sdk/<provider> packages: If you prefer a first-party package, please create an issue first to discuss.

Reference Example

See https://github.com/vercel/ai/pull/8136/files for a complete example of adding a new provider.

Provider Architecture

The AI SDK uses a layered provider architecture following the adapter pattern:

1. Specifications (@ai-sdk/provider): Defines interfaces like LanguageModelV4, EmbeddingModelV4, etc.
2. Utilities (@ai-sdk/provider-utils): Shared code for implementing providers
3. Providers (@ai-sdk/<provider>): Concrete implementations for each AI service
4. Core (ai): High-level functions like generateText, streamText, generateObject

Step-by-Step Guide

1. Create Package Structure

Create a new folder packages/<provider> with the following structure:

packages/<provider>/
├── src/
│   ├── index.ts                  # Main exports
│   ├── version.ts                # Package version
│   ├── <provider>-provider.ts    # Provider implementation
│   ├── <provider>-provider.test.ts
│   ├── <provider>-*-options.ts   # Model-specific options
│   └── <provider>-*-model.ts     # Model implementations (e.g., language, embedding, image)
├── package.json
├── tsconfig.json
├── tsconfig.build.json
├── tsup.config.ts
├── turbo.json
├── vitest.node.config.js
├── vitest.edge.config.js
└── README.md

Do not create a CHANGELOG.md file. It will be auto-generated.

2. Configure package.json

Set up your package.json with:

• "name": "@ai-sdk/<provider>"
• "version": "0.0.0" (initial version, will be updated by changeset)
• "license": "Apache-2.0"
• "sideEffects": false
• Dependencies on @ai-sdk/provider and @ai-sdk/provider-utils (use workspace:*)
• Dev dependencies: @ai-sdk/test-server, @types/node, @vercel/ai-tsconfig, tsup, typescript, zod
• "engines": { "node": ">=18" }
• Peer dependency on zod (both v3 and v4): "zod": "^3.25.76 || ^4.1.8"

Example exports configuration:

{
  "exports": {
    "./package.json": "./package.json",
    ".": {
      "types": "./dist/index.d.ts",
      "import": "./dist/index.mjs",
      "require": "./dist/index.js"
    }
  }
}

3. Create TypeScript Configurations

tsconfig.json:

{
  "extends": "@vercel/ai-tsconfig/base.json",
  "include": ["src/**/*.ts"],
  "exclude": ["node_modules", "dist"]
}

tsconfig.build.json:

{
  "extends": "./tsconfig.json",
  "exclude": [
    "**/*.test.ts",
    "**/*.test-d.ts",
    "**/__snapshots__",
    "**/__fixtures__"
  ]
}

4. Configure Build Tool (tsup)

Create tsup.config.ts:

import { defineConfig } from 'tsup';

export default defineConfig({
  entry: ['src/index.ts'],
  format: ['cjs', 'esm'],
  dts: true,
  sourcemap: true,
  clean: true,
});

5. Configure Test Runners

Create both vitest.node.config.js and vitest.edge.config.js (copy from existing provider like anthropic).

6. Implement Provider

Provider implementation pattern:

// <provider>-provider.ts
import { NoSuchModelError } from '@ai-sdk/provider';
import { loadApiKey } from '@ai-sdk/provider-utils';

export interface ProviderSettings {
  apiKey?: string;
  baseURL?: string;
  // provider-specific settings
}

export class ProviderInstance {
  readonly apiKey?: string;
  readonly baseURL?: string;

  constructor(options: ProviderSettings = {}) {
    this.apiKey = options.apiKey;
    this.baseURL = options.baseURL;
  }

  private get baseConfig() {
    return {
      apiKey: () =>
        loadApiKey({
          apiKey: this.apiKey,
          environmentVariableName: 'PROVIDER_API_KEY',
          description: 'Provider API key',
        }),
      baseURL: this.baseURL ?? 'https://api.provider.com',
    };
  }

  languageModel(modelId: string) {
    return new ProviderLanguageModel(modelId, this.baseConfig);
  }

  // Shorter alias
  chat(modelId: string) {
    return this.languageModel(modelId);
  }
}

// Export default instance
export const providerName = new ProviderInstance();

7. Implement Model Classes

Each model type (language, embedding, image, etc.) should implement the appropriate interface from @ai-sdk/provider:

• LanguageModelV4 for text generation models
• EmbeddingModelV4 for embedding models
• ImageModelV4 for image generation models
• etc.

Schema guidelines:

Provider Options (user-facing):

• Use .optional() unless null is meaningful
• Be as restrictive as possible for future flexibility

Response Schemas (API responses):

• Use .nullish() instead of .optional()
• Keep minimal - only include properties you need
• Allow flexibility for provider API changes

8. Create README.md

Include:

• Brief description linking to documentation
• Installation instructions
• Basic usage example
• Link to full documentation

9. Write Tests

• Unit tests for provider logic
• API response parsing tests using fixtures in __fixtures__ subdirectory
• Both Node.js and Edge runtime tests

See capture-api-response-test-fixture skill for capturing real API responses for testing.

10. Add Examples

Create examples in examples/ai-functions/src/ for each model type the provider supports:

• generate-text/<provider>.ts - Basic text generation
• stream-text/<provider>.ts - Streaming text
• generate-object/<provider>.ts - Structured output (if supported)
• stream-object/<provider>.ts - Streaming structured output (if supported)
• embed/<provider>.ts - Embeddings (if supported)
• generate-image/<provider>.ts - Image generation (if supported)
• etc.

Add feature-specific examples as needed (e.g., <provider>-tool-call.ts, <provider>-cache-control.ts).

11. Add Documentation

Create documentation in content/providers/01-ai-sdk-providers/<last number + 10>-<provider>.mdx

Include:

• Setup instructions
• Available models
• Model capabilities
• Provider-specific options
• Usage examples
• API configuration

12. Create Changeset

Run pnpm changeset and:

• Select the new provider package
• Choose major version (for new packages starting at 0.0.0)
• Describe what the package provides

13. Update References

Run pnpm update-references from the workspace root to update tsconfig references.

14. Build and Test

# From workspace root
pnpm build

# From provider package
cd packages/<provider>
pnpm test              # Run all tests
pnpm test:node         # Run Node.js tests
pnpm test:edge         # Run Edge tests
pnpm type-check        # Type checking

# From workspace root
pnpm type-check:full   # Full type check including examples

15. Run Examples

Test your examples:

cd examples/ai-functions
pnpm tsx src/generate-text/<provider>.ts
pnpm tsx src/stream-text/<provider>.ts

Provider Method Naming

• Full names: languageModel(id), imageModel(id), embeddingModel(id) (required)
• Short aliases: .chat(id), .image(id), .embedding(id) (for DX)

File Naming Conventions

• Source files: kebab-case.ts
• Test files: kebab-case.test.ts
• Type test files: kebab-case.test-d.ts
• Provider classes: <Provider>Provider, <Provider>LanguageModel, etc.

Security Best Practices

• Never use JSON.parse directly - use parseJSON or safeParseJSON from @ai-sdk/provider-utils
• Load API keys securely using loadApiKey from @ai-sdk/provider-utils
• Validate all API responses against schemas

Error Handling

Errors should extend AISDKError from @ai-sdk/provider and use a marker pattern:

import { AISDKError } from '@ai-sdk/provider';

const name = 'AI_ProviderError';
const marker = `vercel.ai.error.${name}`;
const symbol = Symbol.for(marker);

export class ProviderError extends AISDKError {
  private readonly [symbol] = true;

  constructor({ message, cause }: { message: string; cause?: unknown }) {
    super({ name, message, cause });
  }

  static isInstance(error: unknown): error is ProviderError {
    return AISDKError.hasMarker(error, marker);
  }
}

Pre-release Mode

If main is set up to publish beta releases, no further action is necessary. Just make sure not to backport it to the vX.Y stable branch since it will result in an npm version conflict once we exit pre-release mode on main.

Checklist

• Package structure created in packages/<provider>
• package.json configured with correct dependencies
• TypeScript configs set up (tsconfig.json, tsconfig.build.json)
• Build configuration (tsup.config.ts)
• Test configurations (vitest.node.config.js, vitest.edge.config.js)
• Provider implementation complete
• Model classes implement appropriate interfaces
• Unit tests written and passing
• API response test fixtures captured
• Examples created in examples/ai-functions/src/
• Documentation added in content/providers/01-ai-sdk-providers/
• README.md written
• Major changeset created
• pnpm update-references run
• All tests passing (pnpm test from package)
• Type checking passing (pnpm type-check:full from root)
• Examples run successfully

Common Issues

• Missing tsconfig references: Run pnpm update-references from workspace root
• Type errors in examples: Run pnpm type-check:full to catch issues early
• Test failures: Ensure both Node and Edge tests pass
• Build errors: Check that tsup.config.ts is configured correctly

Related Documentation

• Provider Architecture
• Provider Development Notes
• Develop AI Functions Example
• Capture API Response Test Fixture