Providers Overview

Providers are implementations of core interfaces that supply specific functionality to your Stratix application. Unlike plugins, providers don't have a lifecycle and are instantiated directly when needed.

Providers vs Plugins vs Libraries

Understanding the distinction between these three types of packages is crucial:

Aspect	Plugins 🔌	Providers 🔧	Libraries 📚
Purpose	Extend application with external resources	Implement core interfaces	Provide utility functions/classes
Lifecycle	Yes (initialize → start → stop)	No	No
Interface	Implements Plugin	Implements specific interfaces (e.g., LLMProvider, Container)	Exports utilities
Manages Resources	Yes (databases, servers, connections)	Sometimes	No
Registration	Via runtime plugin system	Direct instantiation	Direct import
Examples	PostgresPlugin, FastifyHTTPPlugin	AnthropicProvider, AwilixContainer	Utility functions, helpers

When to Use Providers

Use providers when you need to:

• Implement a core interface: Like LLMProvider for AI models or Container for dependency injection
• Provide swappable implementations: Different providers for the same interface (e.g., OpenAI vs Anthropic)
• No lifecycle management needed: The provider is instantiated when needed, not during app startup

Available Provider Categories

AI Providers

Implementations of the LLMProvider interface for different AI models:

• @stratix/ai-anthropic - Claude models (Opus, Sonnet, Haiku)
• @stratix/ai-openai - OpenAI models (GPT-4, GPT-3.5)

Learn more about AI Providers →

Dependency Injection Providers

Implementations of the Container interface:

• @stratix/di-awilix - Awilix-based DI container (recommended)

Learn more about DI Providers →

Validation Providers

Implementations of the Validator interface:

• @stratix/validation-zod - Zod-based schema validation

Learn more about Validation Providers →

Using Providers

Providers are typically instantiated directly in your code:

import { AnthropicProvider } from '@stratix/ai-anthropic';
import { AwilixContainer } from '@stratix/di-awilix';

// AI Provider - instantiated when creating an agent
const llmProvider = new AnthropicProvider({
  apiKey: process.env.ANTHROPIC_API_KEY!
});

// DI Container - instantiated at app startup
const container = new AwilixContainer();

Creating Custom Providers

To create a custom provider, implement the relevant core interface:

import type { LLMProvider, ChatParams, ChatResponse } from '@stratix/core';

export class CustomLLMProvider implements LLMProvider {
  readonly name = 'custom-llm';
  readonly models = ['custom-model-1', 'custom-model-2'];

  async chat(params: ChatParams): Promise<ChatResponse> {
    // Your implementation
  }

  async *streamChat(params: ChatParams): AsyncIterable<ChatChunk> {
    // Your streaming implementation
  }

  async embeddings(params: EmbeddingParams): Promise<EmbeddingResponse> {
    // Your embeddings implementation
  }
}

Next Steps

• AI Providers - Learn about LLM providers for AI agents
• DI Providers - Learn about dependency injection containers
• Creating Plugins - If you need lifecycle management, create a plugin instead