How to Switch Between GitHub Copilot and BTOK When Using Your Own LLM Provider API Key (BYOK)

[ghjcfrt]

🏷️ Discussion Type

Question

💬 Feature/Topic Area

Copilot CLI

Body

When using my own LLM provider API key (BYOK), how should I configure things so that I can switch between GitHub Copilot and BTOK — by closing the window and reopening a new one for each switch?

[Gitious]

No, you don't need to close the window. Switching is just env-var management, you can do it all in the same shell.

Go BYOK:

export COPILOT_PROVIDER_TYPE=anthropic
export COPILOT_PROVIDER_BASE_URL=https://api.anthropic.com
export COPILOT_PROVIDER_API_KEY=sk-ant-...
export COPILOT_MODEL=claude-opus-4-5
copilot

Go back to default:

unset COPILOT_PROVIDER_TYPE COPILOT_PROVIDER_BASE_URL COPILOT_PROVIDER_API_KEY COPILOT_MODEL
copilot

If you switch often, drop a couple of aliases in your ~/.zshrc or ~/.bashrc (like copilot-byok and plain copilot) so you don't retype the exports every time.

One small thing: BYOK vs default is locked in when copilot starts. The /model slash command inside Copilot CLI lets you swap models mid-session, but only within the currently active provider. To swap between BYOK and default, you exit and relaunch.

[ghjcfrt]

Hmm, after modifying global environment variables, don't you need to restart the terminal to load the new environment variables? Or is Copilot different?