First hour with the repo
The orientation path: what Lavern is, how to run it, where everything lives, and how to navigate from here.
Pick a provider
The setup prompts you to choose one:
| Provider | What it is | Cost | Needs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Anthropic Cloud (default, recommended) | Claude via Anthropic API. Best capability. The agents, debate, and verification loop were tuned for Claude. | Paid per call | sk-ant-... key from console.anthropic.com |
| Local (Ollama) | On-device inference via gemma3:4b (or any model you pull). Nothing leaves the host. Quality drops noticeably vs Claude — use for offline tinkering and privacy demos, not serious matters. |
$0 | Ollama installed; setup will offer to brew install (macOS) or curl | sh (Linux). ~3 GB model pull. |
| Mistral (EU Sovereign) | EU-hosted inference for GDPR-bound matters. | Paid per call | Key from console.mistral.ai |
To change provider later: edit .env or re-run npm run setup.