Venice AI (Venius highlight)

Venius is our highlight Venice setup for privacy-first inference with optional anonymized access to proprietary models.

Venice AI provides privacy-focused AI inference with support for uncensored models and access to major proprietary models through their anonymized proxy. All inference is private by default—no training on your data, no logging.

Why Venice in Bot

• Private inference for open-source models (no logging).
• Uncensored models when you need them.
• Anonymized access to proprietary models (Opus/GPT/Gemini) when quality matters.
• OpenAI-compatible /v1 endpoints.

Privacy Modes

Venice offers two privacy levels — understanding this is key to choosing your model:

Features

• Privacy-focused: Choose between "private" (fully private) and "anonymized" (proxied) modes
• Uncensored models: Access to models without content restrictions
• Major model access: Use Claude, GPT-5.2, Gemini, Grok via Venice's anonymized proxy
• OpenAI-compatible API: Standard /v1 endpoints for easy integration
• Streaming: ✅ Supported on all models
• Function calling: ✅ Supported on select models (check model capabilities)
• Vision: ✅ Supported on models with vision capability
• No hard rate limits: Fair-use throttling may apply for extreme usage

Setup

export VENICE_API_KEY="vapi_xxxxxxxxxxxx"

bot onboard --auth-choice venice-api-key

bot onboard --non-interactive \
  --auth-choice venice-api-key \
  --venice-api-key "vapi_xxxxxxxxxxxx"

bot chat --model venice/llama-3.3-70b "Hello, are you working?"

Model Selection

After setup, Bot shows all available Venice models. Pick based on your needs:

• Default (our pick): venice/llama-3.3-70b for private, balanced performance.
• Best overall quality: venice/claude-opus-45 for hard jobs (Opus remains the strongest).
• Privacy: Choose "private" models for fully private inference.
• Capability: Choose "anonymized" models to access Claude, GPT, Gemini via Venice's proxy.

Change your default model anytime:

bot models set venice/claude-opus-45
bot models set venice/llama-3.3-70b

List all available models:

bot models list | grep venice

Configure via bot configure

1. Run bot configure
2. Select Model/auth
3. Choose Venice AI

Which Model Should I Use?

Available Models (25 Total)

Private Models (15) — Fully Private, No Logging

Anonymized Models (10) — Via Venice Proxy

Model Discovery

Bot automatically discovers models from the Venice API when VENICE_API_KEY is set. If the API is unreachable, it falls back to a static catalog.

The /models endpoint is public (no auth needed for listing), but inference requires a valid API key.

Streaming & Tool Support

Pricing

Venice uses a credit-based system. Check venice.ai/pricing for current rates:

• Private models: Generally lower cost
• Anonymized models: Similar to direct API pricing + small Venice fee

Comparison: Venice vs Direct API

Usage Examples

# Use default private model
bot chat --model venice/llama-3.3-70b

# Use Claude via Venice (anonymized)
bot chat --model venice/claude-opus-45

# Use uncensored model
bot chat --model venice/venice-uncensored

# Use vision model with image
bot chat --model venice/qwen3-vl-235b-a22b

# Use coding model
bot chat --model venice/qwen3-coder-480b-a35b-instruct

Troubleshooting

API key not recognized

echo $VENICE_API_KEY
bot models list | grep venice

Ensure the key starts with vapi_.

Model not available

The Venice model catalog updates dynamically. Run bot models list to see currently available models. Some models may be temporarily offline.

Connection issues

Venice API is at https://api.venice.ai/api/v1. Ensure your network allows HTTPS connections.

Config file example

{
  env: { VENICE_API_KEY: "vapi_..." },
  agents: { defaults: { model: { primary: "venice/llama-3.3-70b" } } },
  models: {
    mode: "merge",
    providers: {
      venice: {
        baseUrl: "https://api.venice.ai/api/v1",
        apiKey: "${VENICE_API_KEY}",
        api: "openai-completions",
        models: [
          {
            id: "llama-3.3-70b",
            name: "Llama 3.3 70B",
            reasoning: false,
            input: ["text"],
            cost: { input: 0, output: 0, cacheRead: 0, cacheWrite: 0 },
            contextWindow: 131072,
            maxTokens: 8192
          }
        ]
      }
    }
  }
}

Links

• Venice AI
• API Documentation
• Pricing
• Status