- Adding a New Provider Package
- This guide covers the process of creating a new
- @ai-sdk/
- 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/
- 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:
Specifications
(
@ai-sdk/provider
): Defines interfaces like
LanguageModelV3
,
EmbeddingModelV3
, etc.
Utilities
(
@ai-sdk/provider-utils
): Shared code for implementing providers
Providers
(
@ai-sdk/
): Concrete implementations for each AI service Core ( ai ): High-level functions like generateText , streamText , generateObject Step-by-Step Guide 1. Create Package Structure Create a new folder packages/ with the following structure: packages/ / ├── src/ │ ├── index.ts # Main exports │ ├── version.ts # Package version │ ├── -provider.ts # Provider implementation │ ├── -provider.test.ts │ ├── --options.ts # Model-specific options │ └── - -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/" "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.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 : LanguageModelV3 for text generation models EmbeddingModelV3 for embedding models ImageModelV1 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/ .ts - Basic text generation stream-text/ .ts - Streaming text generate-object/ .ts - Structured output (if supported) stream-object/ .ts - Streaming structured output (if supported) embed/ .ts - Embeddings (if supported) generate-image/ .ts - Image generation (if supported) etc. Add feature-specific examples as needed (e.g., -tool-call.ts , -cache-control.ts ). 11. Add Documentation Create documentation in content/providers/01-ai-sdk-providers/ - .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
-
- 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 - ,
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/
- 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