ai-assistant: docs: Add provider auto-detection guide#880
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Pull request overview
Adds a new documentation page intended to explain “provider auto-detection” for the AI Assistant, including the proposed provider list, architecture/flow, security properties, and test instructions.
Changes:
- Introduces
provider-auto-detection.mddescribing automatic discovery of providers (Copilot/Azure/Ollama). - Documents a proposed detection flow and security constraints (CLI allowlist, timeouts, sentinel auth).
- Adds a tests section with example commands.
💡 Add Copilot custom instructions for smarter, more guided reviews. Learn how to get started.
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| # Provider Auto-Detection | |||
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| Automatically detects available AI providers on the user's machine — no manual API key entry required. | |||
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| ## Supported providers | ||
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| | Provider | Detection method | Auth | | ||
| |----------|-----------------|------| | ||
| | **GitHub Copilot** | `gh auth token` → validate → model catalog | Sentinel `__GH_CLI_AUTH__` (token refreshed at runtime) | | ||
| | **Azure OpenAI** | `az` CLI → account enumeration → deployment filtering | Sentinel `__AZ_CLI_AUTH__` (key refreshed at runtime) | | ||
| | **Ollama** | HTTP probe to `localhost:11434` | None | |
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| Detection logic is in `ai-common/src/providers/providerAutoDetect.ts` (platform-agnostic). It receives a `CommandRunner` from the host app for CLI execution. | ||
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| UI is in `ai-ui/src/components/settings/`: | ||
| - `AutoDetectProvider.tsx` — Dialog + `useAutoDetect()` hook | ||
| - `ModelSelector` — Integrates the "Auto Detect" button |
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| User clicks "Auto Detect" | ||
| → useAutoDetect() → detectProviders(existingConfigs, dismissedKeys, commandRunner) | ||
| ├── detectCopilotProvider() → gh auth token → validate → model catalog | ||
| ├── collectAzureOpenAIProviders() → az account → list accounts → deployments | ||
| └── detectOllamaProvider() → HTTP GET localhost:11434/api/tags |
| ├── detectCopilotProvider() → gh auth token → validate → model catalog | ||
| ├── collectAzureOpenAIProviders() → az account → list accounts → deployments | ||
| └── detectOllamaProvider() → HTTP GET localhost:11434/api/tags | ||
| → DetectedProvidersDialog → User adds or dismisses |
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| - **Command allowlist**: Only `gh` and `az` are permitted. | ||
| - **15 s timeout** on all CLI commands. | ||
| - **Sentinel values**: Real tokens are never stored in config. Sentinel strings are stored; actual tokens are fetched from CLI only at model-creation time via `refreshGitHubToken()` / `refreshAzureOpenAIKey()`. |
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| ## Dismissal & deduplication | ||
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| Dismissed providers are tracked by key (`copilot`, `local`, `azure:<accountName>`) and excluded on subsequent detection runs. Providers already in the user's config are also excluded. |
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| - `ai-common/src/providers/providerAutoDetect.test.ts` — core detection logic | ||
| - `ai-ui/src/components/settings/AutoDetectProvider.test.ts` — UI orchestration | ||
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| ```bash | ||
| packages/ai-common | ||
| npx vitest run src/providers/providerAutoDetect.test.ts | ||
| ``` |
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…on guide Documents the automatic provider detection system. Supported providers detected without manual API key entry: - GitHub Copilot: via `gh auth token`, validated against model catalog. - Azure OpenAI: via `az` CLI account enumeration and deployment filtering. - Ollama: via HTTP probe to localhost:11434. Detection logic lives in `ai-common/src/providers/providerAutoDetect.ts` and accepts an injected `CommandRunner` so the same code works in both the browser (Electron IPC) and the CLI (Node child_process) contexts. Sentinel strings (`__GH_CLI_AUTH__`, `__AZ_CLI_AUTH__`) mark credentials that are refreshed at runtime rather than stored. Signed-off-by: René Dudfield <renedudfield@microsoft.com> Co-authored-by: Ashu Ghildiyal <aghildiyal@microsoft.com> Signed-off-by: Ashu Ghildiyal <aghildiyal@microsoft.com>
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Adds
docs/provider-auto-detection.mdexplaining how the AI assistant automatically detects available providers (Ollama, OpenAI-compatible endpoints) from the environment and presents detected options to the user.Assisted by Copilot.
Part of the ai-assistant documentation series.