external-agents

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mrrlin-dev/external-agents/main/install.sh | bash

The script installs the package, registers the MCP server with Claude Code and/or Codex (whichever it finds), and opens a local dashboard where you paste provider keys inline:

Then restart your MCP client. Your agent now has the tools.

npm install -g @mrrlin-dev/external-agents # Register with whichever host(s) you use claude mcp add external-agents external-agents-mcp codex mcp add external-agents -- external-agents-mcp # Set up keys external-agents ui # opens http://127.0.0.1:4711

Requires Node ≥ 20. Works on macOS and Linux; Windows via WSL.

How much do I have to set up before this is useful?

Nothing, if you're already logged into an agentic CLI. Entries backed by a subscription you already have —claude,codex,cursor-agent,ollama,opencode,kiro-cli,agy— need no API key at all; they're usable the moment the binary is on yourPATHand logged in.

Everything else is incremental. Each key you paste lights up more of the pool, and none of them are required:

Signup for each is about a minute. The dashboard links straight to the right page and has a paste box next to it.

Two MCP tools, available automatically after setup:

-

dispatch(agent_id, prompt)— run a prompt on a specific pool member. Auto-retries on a different provider if the first is rate-limited, and honors the provider's own reset time rather than a made-up 1-hour default.

Passcwd(an existing directory — a git worktree, say) and a direct CLI will inspect and edit files in place.cwddoesnotgrant filesystem access to HTTP-based models; give those context withfilesinstead. Whencwdis a git repo, thefileslist that comes back is the git-changed set, not the whole tree.

pick_agents(n, min_distinct_providers)— ask for N healthy agents from N different providers. This is the primitive for fan-out: jury-style review, self-consistency checks, your own consensus loop.

Both tools carry the routing guidance below in their descriptions, so any model reading the schema at runtime picks up the same bias.

Everything is also available from the terminal —external-agents pick,dispatch,status,stats,audit— if you'd rather script it than go through MCP. Runexternal-agentswith no arguments for the full list.

28 bundled entries, 25 enabled out of the box. The rest are paid upgrades that stay off until you opt in.

Got a second Google project? Google AI Studio can rate-limit an entireprojectat once, separately from each model's own per-minute limit — so a second key from the same account is a genuinely independent bucket, not a retry of the first. The dashboard's "+ Add another key" clones the provider's models under a new slug (google→google2→google3…) and stores it in your local overlay, where it stays removable. The same applies to any key-based provider here.

Google's strong-tier model is the one bundled entry that's off by default: Gemini 3.1 Pro has a free-tier allowance of zero, so reaching it at all needs billing enabled. It stays bundled so you can flip it on if that's what you want. If you want a strong model for free instead, the pool has nine — Nemotron Ultra and Super on OpenRouter, gpt-oss 120B on Groq and Ollama, and Claude Opus / Gemini Pro through Antigravity.

DeepSeek ships disabled because its API is prepaid — with no key and no balance it can't answer anything, so it stays out of your pool until you addDEEPSEEK_API_KEY, at which point both entries turn themselves on.

Cerebras (removed in 0.13.0) and Z.ai (removed in 0.22.0) are no longer bundled — both need paid-provider setup. Add them back locally withadd-modelif you have a plan.

Providers deprecate models, free tiers rotate, keys expire. The bundled registry tells you whatexists; only a real call tells you whatyour accountcan still reach.

external-agents audit # every entry with an HTTP transport external-agents audit --provider google # just one bucket

One round-trip per entry, concurrent per provider so you don't trip rate limits, and the verdicts are written tostate.json— so the dashboard and dispatch immediately reflect ground truth:

- ✓ healthy— key works, model exists
- ⚠ needs_auth— 401/403, paste or refresh the key
- ✗ model_unavailable— key is fine, this model isn't on your tier
- ⏳ rate_limited— hit the current limit, will recover

Day to day,external-agents uiis the same information as a page: live provider state, usage, and a paste box per provider. It binds to loopback only. Individual entries have an on/off switch (external-agents toggle <id> --disabled) if you want one out of rotation without deleting anything.

An internal endpoint, a beta model, anything not bundled:

external-agents add-model \ --id kimi-k2-instruct \ --provider groq \ --model moonshotai/kimi-k2-instruct \ --url https://api.groq.com/openai/v1/chat/completions \ --env GROQ_API_KEY \ --tags free,fast