Mistral

Use Mistral AI models with cagent.

Overview

Mistral AI provides powerful language models through an OpenAI-compatible API. cagent includes built-in support for Mistral as an alias provider.

Setup

Get an API key from Mistral Console
Set the environment variable:
```
export MISTRAL_API_KEY=your-api-key
```

Usage

Inline Syntax

The simplest way to use Mistral:

agents:
  root:
    model: mistral/mistral-large-latest
    description: Assistant using Mistral
    instruction: You are a helpful assistant.

Named Model

For more control over parameters:

models:
  mistral:
    provider: mistral
    model: mistral-large-latest
    temperature: 0.7
    max_tokens: 8192

agents:
  root:
    model: mistral
    description: Assistant using Mistral
    instruction: You are a helpful assistant.

Available Models

Model	Description	Context
`mistral-large-latest`	Most capable Mistral model	128K
`mistral-medium-latest`	Balanced performance and cost	128K
`mistral-small-latest`	Fast and cost-effective (default)	128K
`codestral-latest`	Optimized for code generation	32K
`open-mistral-nemo`	Open-weight model	128K
`ministral-8b-latest`	Compact 8B parameter model	128K
`ministral-3b-latest`	Smallest Mistral model	128K

Check the Mistral Models documentation for the latest available models.

Auto-Detection

When you run cagent run without specifying a config, cagent automatically detects available providers. If MISTRAL_API_KEY is set and higher-priority providers (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google) are not available, Mistral will be used with mistral-small-latest as the default model.

Extended Thinking

Mistral models support thinking mode through the OpenAI-compatible API. By default, cagent enables medium thinking effort:

models:
  mistral:
    provider: mistral
    model: mistral-large-latest
    thinking_budget: high # minimal, low, medium, high, or none

To disable thinking:

models:
  mistral:
    provider: mistral
    model: mistral-large-latest
    thinking_budget: none

How It Works

Mistral is implemented as a built-in alias in cagent:

API Type: OpenAI-compatible (openai_chatcompletions)
Base URL: https://api.mistral.ai/v1
Token Variable: MISTRAL_API_KEY

This means Mistral uses the same client as OpenAI, making it fully compatible with all OpenAI features supported by cagent.

Example: Code Assistant

agents:
  coder:
    model: mistral/codestral-latest
    description: Expert code assistant
    instruction: |
      You are an expert programmer using Codestral.
      Write clean, efficient, well-documented code.
      Explain your reasoning when helpful.
    toolsets:
      - type: filesystem
      - type: shell
      - type: think

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