Aider

Aider is an open-source AI pair programmer for the terminal. It maps your repo, edits files, and commits changes. Use varlock to inject provider API keys at runtime so they never sit in a plain text .env or shell history.

For install, schema setup, and shared patterns, see the AI Tools overview.

Launch command: aider

Environment variables (see API keys):

• ANTHROPIC_API_KEY for Anthropic models
• OPENAI_API_KEY for OpenAI models
• Other providers use their usual env names (DEEPSEEK_API_KEY, OPENROUTER_API_KEY, GEMINI_API_KEY, and so on)

In a project

Add to .env.schema:

# @sensitive @required
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=op(op://api-local/anthropic/api-key)

# @sensitive
OPENAI_API_KEY=op(op://api-local/openai/api-key)

Tip

You can use any secrets provider you want, but we like 1Password since it uses biometric authentication for local access. All the examples in this guide use the 1Password plugin (op()) to show more real world examples. See that page for plugin setup and auth options.

varlock run -- aider

# or pin a model
varlock run -- aider --model sonnet

From any directory

Personal schema at ~/.env.aider:

~/.env.aider

# @sensitive @required
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=op(op://api-local/anthropic/api-key)

# @sensitive
OPENAI_API_KEY=op(op://api-local/openai/api-key)

varlock run -p ~/.env.aider -- aider

Shell alias (optional)

alias vaider='varlock run -p ~/.env.aider --no-redact-stdout -- aider'

--no-redact-stdout keeps Aider’s own terminal output unredacted while secrets stay out of your shell history.

See the Aider docs for models, install, and config file options.