bdd model

LLM model discovery and selection. The CLI talks to a local Ollama — no cloud calls, no tokens — and uses the model only to polish deterministic templates in the generation commands. Everything works without a model; generation just stays at template quality.

The model this CLI is developed and run against is qwen3-coder-next:latest. Pull it with ollama pull qwen3-coder-next:latest, then persist the choice with bdd model use qwen3-coder-next:latest. Your mileage will vary with other models: a stronger coding model may improve drafts and implementations; a model trained for chat, general knowledge, or work other than development will typically produce weaker specs, steps, tests, and production code. The CLI does not require this specific model — it uses whatever you configure, or the first model Ollama has installed.

Usage: bdd model [OPTIONS] <COMMAND>

Commands: list, current, use

How a model is resolved

Highest priority first:

1. --model flag — this invocation only, never persisted.
2. Configuration — the model key in .bdd-mcp.toml under the project root, written by bdd model use.
3. Discovery — the first model installed in Ollama, as a session-only default. Nothing is written to disk.

If Ollama is unreachable or has no models, LLM-backed generation falls back to deterministic templates.

bdd model list

List the models installed in Ollama, marking the one that would currently be used.

bdd model list

Models available in Ollama:
* qwen3-coder-next:latest   (configured)
  qwen3:8b
  llama3:8b

With no configuration, the marker moves to the discovered session default. If Ollama is down, the command fails with exit status 1 and says the provider is unreachable.

bdd model current

Show the resolved model and where it came from.

bdd model current

Configured model: qwen3-coder-next:latest

With nothing configured but models installed, the first one is the session default and the output tells you it is not saved:

Model set for this session: qwen3-coder-next:latest (not saved - keep it with: bdd model use qwen3-coder-next:latest).

The same announcement appears when the interactive shell starts.

bdd model use

Persist a model choice in the project’s configuration.

Usage: bdd model use [OPTIONS] <MODEL_NAME>

bdd model use qwen3-coder-next:latest

Configured model: qwen3-coder-next:latest
Written to /Users/you/code/calculator/.bdd-mcp.toml

The choice is validated against Ollama’s installed models — a name Ollama does not have is rejected rather than silently saved.

The [llm] configuration block

Everything model-related lives under [llm] in .bdd-mcp.toml:

[llm]
model = "qwen3-coder-next:latest"     # persisted by bdd model use
endpoint = "http://localhost:11434"   # the Ollama endpoint
timeout_seconds = 300                 # generation timeout (default 300)

timeout_seconds bounds how long one generation call may take. Large prompts — an implementation attempt carries the requirement, the failure details, and every project source file — can keep a local model generating for minutes; when the budget runs out the error names it explicitly (no reply within 300s ... set timeout_seconds under [llm]). Raise it for big projects or slower models.

Which commands actually use the model

See also

• Global flags — the --model override.
• bdd steps generate — how LLM output is validated before it can stage.