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Aider: using the VIDAI Control Plane as the backend

Aider's LLM config accepts an OpenAI-compatible base URL and API key on the command line, via env vars, or in .aider.conf.yml. Any of the three routes every AI-assisted edit, commit, and repo-map summarisation through the control plane.

TL;DR

aider \
  --model openai/gpt-4o-mini \
  --openai-api-base https://your-vidai-server.example.com/v1 \
  --openai-api-key your-vidai-key

Or with env vars:

export OPENAI_API_BASE=https://your-vidai-server.example.com/v1
export OPENAI_API_KEY=your-vidai-key

aider --model openai/gpt-4o-mini

Prerequisites

  • pip install aider-chat (or pipx install aider-chat).
  • Control plane base URL and an API key from API Keys.
  • A model registered on the Models page. The openai/ prefix tells Aider (via litellm) to use the OpenAI wire shape — which is what the control plane speaks.

Persistent config

Drop your defaults into .aider.conf.yml in your repo (or ~/.aider.conf.yml for global):

openai-api-base: https://your-vidai-server.example.com/v1
openai-api-key: your-vidai-key
model: openai/gpt-4o-mini

Aider picks these up on every invocation in the repo.

Different models for edit vs weak

Aider uses a stronger model for edits and a weaker model for summaries + commit messages. Configure both:

model:      openai/claude-sonnet-4.5
weak-model: openai/gpt-4o-mini

Both go through the control plane; the weak-model traffic shows up separately on Request Logs if you want to see how much of the spend is repo-summarisation vs actual edits.

Attribution

One VIDAI API key per developer is the tidy pattern — the Chargeback tab then breaks Aider spend down per user. Or one shared key per team.

Diff mode / edit format

Aider's --edit-format and diff modes are transparent to the control plane. Every partial diff round-trip is a control-plane request.

Verify it works

aider --model openai/gpt-4o-mini \
  --openai-api-base https://your-vidai-server.example.com/v1 \
  --openai-api-key your-vidai-key \
  --message "reply with exactly: ok"

A row appears on Request Logs.

If something's off

Raise an issue at github.com/vidaiUK/vidai-quickstart/issues with your Aider invocation (masking the key) and the message that reproduces the issue. We'll get it sorted.

Where to go next