docs/future-roadmap/P3_REMOVE_ANTHROPIC_PARTIAL_WIRING.md

P3 Tech Debt: Remove Anthropic Partial Wiring

Date: 2025-12-03 Status: OPEN Severity: P3 (Tech Debt / Simplification) Component: Architecture / Provider Integration

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Summary

Remove all Anthropic-related code, configuration, and references from the codebase. Anthropic is partially wired but not fully threaded through the architecture, creating confusion and half-implemented code paths.

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Rationale

1. Anthropic Does NOT Provide Embeddings

Our architecture requires embeddings for:

• RAG (LlamaIndex/ChromaDB)
• Evidence deduplication
• Semantic search

Anthropic only provides chat completion, not embeddings. This means even with a working Anthropic chat client, users would need a second provider for embeddings, breaking the unified experience.

2. Partial Implementation Creates Confusion

Current state:

• settings.anthropic_api_key exists ✅
• settings.has_anthropic_key property exists ✅
• settings.anthropic_model configured ✅
• AnthropicChatClient for agent_framework DOES NOT EXIST ❌
• Code raises NotImplementedError when Anthropic detected ❌

This half-state causes:

• User confusion ("Why doesn't my Anthropic key work?")
• Developer confusion ("Is Anthropic supported or not?")
• Dead code paths that need maintenance

3. Unified Architecture Principle

Principle: Only support providers that work end-to-end through the entire stack:

Provider Requirements:
├── Chat Completion (for agents)     ✅ Required
├── Function/Tool Calling            ✅ Required
├── Embeddings (for RAG)             ✅ Required
└── Streaming                        ✅ Required

Provider	Chat	Tools	Embeddings	Streaming	Status
OpenAI	✅	✅	✅	✅	KEEP
HuggingFace	✅	✅	✅ (local)	✅	KEEP
Gemini	✅	✅	✅	✅	Future (Phase 4)
Anthropic	✅	✅	❌	✅	REMOVE

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Files to Clean Up

Configuration

• src/utils/config.py - Remove anthropic_api_key, anthropic_model, has_anthropic_key

Client Factory

• src/clients/factory.py - Remove Anthropic detection and NotImplementedError

Legacy Code (pydantic-ai based)

• src/utils/llm_factory.py - Remove AnthropicModel, AnthropicProvider imports and handling
• src/agent_factory/judges.py - Remove Anthropic model selection

App/UI

• src/app.py - Remove has_anthropic_key checks and "Anthropic from env" backend info

Documentation

• CLAUDE.md - Update LLM provider list
• AGENTS.md - Update LLM provider list
• GEMINI.md - Update LLM provider list

Tests

• tests/unit/clients/test_chat_client_factory.py - Remove Anthropic test cases
• tests/unit/utils/test_config.py - Remove Anthropic config tests

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Code Snippets to Remove

src/utils/config.py

# REMOVE these lines:
anthropic_api_key: str | None = Field(default=None, description="Anthropic API key")
anthropic_model: str = Field(
    default="claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929", description="Anthropic model"
)

@property
def has_anthropic_key(self) -> bool:
    """Check if Anthropic API key is available."""
    return bool(self.anthropic_api_key)

src/clients/factory.py

# REMOVE these lines:
if api_key.startswith("sk-ant-"):
    normalized = "anthropic"

if normalized == "anthropic":
    raise NotImplementedError(
        "Anthropic client not yet implemented. "
        "Use OpenAI key (sk-...) or leave empty for free HuggingFace tier."
    )

src/app.py

# REMOVE these lines:
elif settings.has_anthropic_key:
    backend_info = "Paid API (Anthropic from env)"

has_anthropic = settings.has_anthropic_key
has_paid_key = has_openai or has_anthropic or bool(user_api_key)
# Change to:
has_paid_key = has_openai or bool(user_api_key)

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Migration Notes

For Users with Anthropic Keys

If users have ANTHROPIC_API_KEY set in their environment:

1. It will be silently ignored (not an error)
2. System falls through to HuggingFace free tier
3. Users should use OPENAI_API_KEY instead for paid tier

Future Consideration

If Anthropic adds embeddings API in the future, we can re-add support. But until then, partial support creates more confusion than value.

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Definition of Done

• All Anthropic references removed from src/
• All Anthropic tests removed or updated
• Documentation updated to reflect supported providers: OpenAI, HuggingFace, (future: Gemini)
• make check passes (lint, typecheck, tests)
• PR reviewed and merged

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Related Documents

• P2_7B_MODEL_GARBAGE_OUTPUT.md - Current free tier model quality issues
• HF_FREE_TIER_ANALYSIS.md - HuggingFace provider routing analysis
• CLAUDE.md - Agent context with provider documentation