Which API should you use with Crush?

For Crush on one monthly price, the best API is an OpenAI-compatible provider with a fixed bill: add Standard Compute to your crushrc as an openai-compat provider at https://api.stdcmpt.com/v1, from $19 a month with a $20 compute budget. Crush is free and runs on your own keys. Charm's own Hyper service bills Hypercredits at 5 cents each, with 100 free a month or 250 a day on its $20 subscription, and OpenRouter suits light, bursty use.

Light or occasional use

For occasional sessions, Hyper's 100 free monthly Hypercredits or a pay-as-you-go key on an efficient model will likely cost the least. A local model through Ollama works too; Crush's own docs use it as the first example.

One fixed monthly bill

When Crush is your daily terminal agent, a Standard Compute key keeps the model bill at the plan price, with Claude, GPT and open models behind one provider entry. Requests stop at the monthly compute budget instead of billing overage.

API and subscription options for Crush

Prices and allowances can change. Crush's crushrc format and custom provider types come from its README and config docs; Hyper's prices from hyper.charm.land, both read on October 14, 2026. Crush: custom providers · Crush config reference · Hyper pricing. Spot an error? Tell us.

Add Standard Compute to your crushrc

provider add standardcompute --name "Standard Compute" --type openai-compat \
  --base-url "https://api.stdcmpt.com/v1" \
  --api-key "$STANDARDCOMPUTE_API_KEY"

model add standardcompute/standardcompute --name "Standard Compute (routed)" \
  --context-window 200000 --default-max-tokens 16000
model add standardcompute/anthropic/claude-sonnet-5.5 --name "Claude Sonnet 5.5" \
  --context-window 200000 --default-max-tokens 16000

Export STANDARDCOMPUTE_API_KEY, start crush and pick the model in its model picker. Use openai-compat, not openai: Crush reserves openai for OpenAI's own API.

Crush questions

Does Crush still use crush.json for custom providers?

It still reads it, but the JSON format is deprecated. Crush now configures itself with a crushrc, a Bash file with Crush builtins such as provider add and model add, looked up in ./.crushrc, ./crushrc and then ~/.config/crush/crushrc. Because it is Bash, the key can come from an environment variable ($STANDARDCOMPUTE_API_KEY) instead of sitting in the file.

Can Crush handle model IDs with a slash, like anthropic/claude-sonnet-5.5?

Yes. In model add, only the first slash separates the provider name from the model ID, so standardcompute/anthropic/claude-sonnet-5.5 registers anthropic/claude-sonnet-5.5 on the standardcompute provider. That is how you pin one model; standardcompute/standardcompute lets Standard Compute's routing pick per request.