Continue

Continue reaches OpenAI-compatible services through its openai provider with a custom apiBase, set in your config.yaml.

Set it up

Save your key in Continue's secrets file. Continue reads ${{ secrets.NAME }} values from .env files; the IDE extensions cannot see variables exported in your shell.

CHEAPAIMODEL_API_KEY=sk-...

Then add a model to ~/.continue/config.yaml (%USERPROFILE%\.continue\config.yaml on Windows):

name: Main Config
version: 1.0.0
schema: v1

models:
  - name: GLM-5.3 (cheapaimodel)
    provider: openai
    model: glm-5.3
    apiBase: https://api.cheapaimodel.ai/v1
    apiKey: ${{ secrets.CHEAPAIMODEL_API_KEY }}
    roles:
      - chat
      - edit
      - apply

Save the file and select GLM-5.3 (cheapaimodel) as the chat model in the Continue sidebar. To use more models, add one entry per model ID from the catalog.

Autocomplete, embeddings and reranking

Leave these roles on other providers:

• autocomplete: Continue's Tab completion expects a fill-in-the-middle (FIM) model; chat models do poorly at it. The catalog's models are chat models.
• embed and rerank: cheapaimodel has no embeddings or reranking models. Codebase indexing keeps using Continue's built-in embedder (VS Code) or another provider.

Common mistakes

• The key is set in your shell but Continue doesn't use it. The VS Code and JetBrains extensions cannot read shell environment variables. Put the key in ~/.continue/.env (no quotes around the value) and restart the IDE.
• Changes to config.yaml don't show up. Run Developer: Reload Window from the VS Code command palette.
• 404 with the plain-text body fault filter abort. apiBase is missing /v1, so requests go to /chat/completions, which is not an API path. Set https://api.cheapaimodel.ai/v1.
• 404 with Invalid URL (POST /v1/chat/completions/chat/completions). apiBase includes the endpoint path. Continue adds /chat/completions itself; set https://api.cheapaimodel.ai/v1 only.
• 503 with model_not_found. The model value is not a model ID we serve. Copy the ID exactly from the catalog; name is only a label.