Use Switchboard with the pi harness to move seamlessly between models, with no keys, configs, or accounts.
pi is an AI agent harness, like the Claude Code CLI. It is a common setup for agentic engineers who need high-volume output. With Switchboard you pick your favorite provider and model for each task, at a passthrough rate plus a small routing fee. You also get usage, model cost, and analytics, so you can see which models perform best for you.
Learn more about pi
pi.devWhat you get
One balance, every model
Connect pi to Switchboard once and every frontier model appears under a switchboard provider. No provider accounts to open, no keys to paste. Your balance is the hard ceiling on what an agent can spend.
Full capability
Streaming, tool calling, thinking, and prompt caching all work exactly as they do against the provider directly, at each provider's exact rate. Every request is metered as it streams, so you always know what a task cost.
Any model, by name
Run Kimi K3 for one task and switch to Claude or GPT for the next. You change models by changing the name, across the whole catalog.
Yours to control
Every request runs through Switchboard, so the controls and visibility that usually take a platform team are already on your own account.
Permissions
Decide what your agent may do on its own and what it must never do. Set a policy once and it is enforced at the router, so a runaway agent cannot run a command you never allowed.
Spending limits
Your prepaid balance is already a hard ceiling. Add a spend cap and a rate limit on top, and a runaway loop stops before it burns through your credit.
Usage tracking
See usage by model and over time, with the cost of every request as it streams. You always know where your spend went.
Debugging
Typed error records in your timeline show when a request failed and exactly why, so you are not left guessing when something breaks.
Manage it all in your dashboard.
Get started
Three steps from an empty terminal to your first model call. The pi extension is in alpha, so APIs may shift before GA and the catalog and pricing are still being tuned.
Install the extension
Install pi, then add the Switchboard extension.
npm install -g @earendil-works/pi-coding-agent
pi install https://github.com/Valni-Labs/[email protected]
The extension lives at
Valni-Labs/pi-switchboard.
The pinned tag is the tested release; drop it to track main, and update later with pi update --extensions.
Sign in from your terminal
Run pi and sign in with /login.
pi
> /login
> /model
> Say hipi shows a short code and opens your browser on the approval page. One click and your terminal is connected. Your account is created the first time you sign in, and new testers get $15 in free credit then, so you can start without paying. Each signed-in device appears under Devices, where you can revoke it any time.
Pick a model and go
/model shows your live catalog. Pick one by name and start working.
claude-sonnet-5 frontier general-purpose claude-opus-4-8 frontier agent and long-form gpt-5.5 frontier general-purpose kimi-k3 long-context, great value deepseek-v4-flash baseline, cheapest The full live catalog is always one call away, and browsable on the Switchboard model list.
Running in CI or on a server?
Where nobody can click an approval, skip /login and export a key instead.
export SWITCHBOARD_API_KEY=swb_...
export SWITCHBOARD_END_USER_ID=your-user-id
pi --provider switchboard --model claude-sonnet-5 "Say hi"
Your swb_ key is a server-side credential. Your own shell or CI runner is its intended home; never embed the key or this extension in an app you distribute to others.