Anthropic

provider: anthropic calls the Anthropic API directly, bypassing Amazon Bedrock. It uses the Strands SDK AnthropicModel backed by the anthropic Python client library.

Installation

The anthropic extra is required:

pip install "agent-core[anthropic]"

This installs anthropic>=0.30,<1 alongside agent-core.

Blueprint configuration

model:
  provider: anthropic
  model_id: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250908    # Anthropic model string, no region prefix
  temperature: 0.3
  max_tokens: 4096
  api_key_env: ANTHROPIC_API_KEY          # Env var holding the Anthropic API key

Fields

Field	Required	Notes
`model_id`	Yes	Anthropic model identifier (e.g. `claude-sonnet-4-5-20250908`).
`temperature`	Yes	Accepted in the blueprint schema but not forwarded to `AnthropicModel` — the constructor does not accept a temperature parameter. Set sampling defaults in your Anthropic API account or use a LiteLLM proxy if you need per-request temperature control.
`max_tokens`	Yes	Forwarded to `AnthropicModel` as a constructor argument.
`api_key_env`	Recommended	Name of the environment variable holding the Anthropic API key. The key value is never stored in the blueprint. If the env var is absent or empty, the `anthropic` client uses its own default resolution (the `ANTHROPIC_API_KEY` env var).

temperature is a required field in the model: schema for all providers, but it is not forwarded to the Anthropic provider constructor. If precise temperature control is important for your use case, route through LiteLLM — the LiteLLM provider passes temperature in the params dict.

Environment variables

Variable	Purpose
`ANTHROPIC_API_KEY` (or whatever `api_key_env` names)	Anthropic API key. Resolved at load time from the env var named in `api_key_env`.

No region variable is needed — the Anthropic API is a single global endpoint (https://api.anthropic.com).

Runtime-switchable model IDs

The model_id field supports ${VAR:-default} expansion:

model:
  provider: anthropic
  model_id: ${ANTHROPIC_MODEL:-claude-haiku-4-20250514}
  temperature: 0.1
  max_tokens: 4096
  api_key_env: ANTHROPIC_API_KEY

Example: minimal Anthropic agent

id: research-assistant
name: Research Assistant
version: "1.0.0"
prompt_ref: research-assistant-system-v1

model:
  provider: anthropic
  model_id: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250908
  temperature: 0.3
  max_tokens: 8192
  api_key_env: ANTHROPIC_API_KEY

gateway:
  auth_type: aws_iam

runtime:
  type: agentcore
  max_iterations: 10
  idle_timeout_minutes: 15
  network_mode: PUBLIC
  protocol: HTTP

Data protection

Bedrock Guardrails are not available for the Anthropic provider. Use data_protection.provider: presidio for provider-agnostic in-process PII filtering:

observability:
  data_protection:
    provider: presidio
    presidio_entities:
      - EMAIL_ADDRESS
      - PHONE_NUMBER
      - CREDIT_CARD
    presidio_language: en

See Data Protection for setup instructions.

Related: LiteLLM — if you need temperature control, header injection, or proxy routing with Claude models, the LiteLLM provider is the better fit.