Aider Configuration

Professional configuration for the Aider AI pair programming tool, optimized for production software engineering with multi-provider support, intelligent model selection, and automated workflows.

What This Does

Configures Aider with:

- Main: o3-mini (reasoning model)

- Editor: Claude 3.7 Sonnet (code editing)

- Weak: Codestral (fast operations)

Instructions

When the user wants to configure Aider with this setup:

1. **Locate or create the Aider config file**:

- Default location: `~/.aider.conf.yml`

- Project-specific: `.aider.conf.yml` in project root

- Ask user which location they prefer

2. **API Key Setup**:

- The config includes placeholders for multiple providers

- Inform user they need to add their actual API keys

- Format: `- provider=sk-xxxxx`

- Providers configured: openai, anthropic, gemini, deepseek, codestral, mistral, github, cohere, xai, groq, together, openrouter

3. **Model Selection**:

- **Main model (architect/reasoning)**: `o3-mini` (default), alternatives: `o1`, `deepseek/deepseek-reasoner`

- **Editor model (code changes)**: `anthropic/claude-3-7-sonnet-20250219` (default), alternatives: `gemini/2.0-flash`, `gpt-4o`, `codestral-latest`

- **Weak model (fast ops)**: `codestral/codestral-latest` (default), alternatives: `gpt-4o-mini`, `mistral-large-latest`

- Commented alternatives are preserved for easy switching

4. **Key Features Enabled**:

- `architect: true` — Better for system design and planning

- `yes-always: true` — Skip confirmation prompts

- `auto-commits: true` — Automatic Git commits after changes

- `attribute-author: false` / `attribute-committer: false` — Standard Git attribution

- `show-diffs: false` — Cleaner output

- `cache-prompts: true` — Performance optimization

- `subtree-only: true` — Only map files in current directory tree

- `vim: true` — Vim keybindings

- `multiline: true` — Multi-line input support

5. **Performance Tuning**:

- `map-tokens: 2048` — Limit context map size

- `map-multiplier-no-files: 4` — Expand map when no files added

- `timeout: 301` — 5-minute timeout for long operations

- `cache-keepalive-pings: 300` — Keep cache warm

6. **Optional Features** (commented out by default):

- OpenAI API base URL overrides (for proxies/alternatives)

- Test automation: `test-cmd` and `auto-test`

- System prompt injection via `read` files

- Custom edit formats: `diff`, `editor-diff`

7. **Write the configuration file** with the full content provided

8. **Verify setup**:

- Run `aider --version` to confirm installation

- Run `aider --check` to validate configuration

- Test with a simple command: `aider --message "say hello"`

Example Usage

User: "Set up my Aider config with the professional dotfiles settings"

Action:

1. Ask if they want global (`~/.aider.conf.yml`) or project-local (`.aider.conf.yml`) config

2. Create/overwrite the config file with this content

3. Remind them to add their API keys for each provider they plan to use

4. Suggest running `aider --check` to validate

Important Notes

Configuration File Location