Models And Providers
Providers are where models come from. Models are the specific choices you use in Chat, workflows, Designer, Developer, voice, and other Row-Bot surfaces.
To understand what leaves the app, when tools run, and where approvals fit, read How A Request Runs.
Recommended Setup Order
- Open Settings -> Providers.
- Connect one provider path.
- Refresh provider health.
- Open Settings -> Models.
- Refresh the catalog.
- Choose a default model.
- Pin Quick Choices.
- Test in Chat.
Choosing A Provider Path
Use local Ollama for local-first privacy and no provider billing. Use an API provider for strong hosted models. Use a subscription account when you already have the supported provider account. Use a custom endpoint for advanced local or self-hosted OpenAI-compatible runtimes.
Choosing Models
Keep at least one everyday chat model and one stronger tool-capable model pinned. For Developer, Designer, workflows, and complex tools, choose a model that can handle tool calls and enough context.
For models with exact reasoning capabilities, Row-Bot exposes a per-thread Reasoning control with only the efforts, toggle, or token-budget choices that model supports. Provider default remains available as the compatibility-safe option.
For Ollama, Row-Bot prefers explicit tool-calling metadata, then the daemon's reported capability list. A reported tools capability enables agent use even for a model family newer than Row-Bot's maintained fallback catalogue; an explicit capability list that omits tools remains authoritative. Family fallbacks are used only when the daemon provides no capability metadata.
Troubleshooting
- If a provider connects but has no models, refresh Models.
- If a model fails with tools, choose a tool-capable model.
- If an Ollama model is unexpectedly excluded from agent use, refresh the local catalogue and inspect the capabilities reported by the installed Ollama daemon.
- If a custom endpoint fails, check base URL, model name, API compatibility, and context window.