Configuration

Configuration File

Axiomatic is configured through axiomatic.yml at your project root. This file is created automatically when you run axm init.

# axiomatic.yml

# LLM provider: "anthropic" (default) or "openai"
provider: anthropic

# Model to use for analysis
model: claude-sonnet-4-6

# API key (supports environment variable interpolation)
api_key: ${ANTHROPIC_API_KEY}

# Optional: custom cache directory (default: .axiomatic)
cache_dir: .axiomatic

# Optional: base URL override (for proxies or custom endpoints)
# base_url: https://your-proxy.example.com

# Optional: max tokens per API call
# max_tokens: 4096

# Optional: agent budget settings
budget:
  maxTokens: 100000     # Token budget per test
  maxIterations: 20     # Maximum agent tool-use turns per test

Environment Variables

Axiomatic reads the following environment variables:

Environment variables can be referenced in axiomatic.yml using ${VAR_NAME} syntax. Set them in your shell or CI environment before running axm.

Provider Options

Anthropic (Default)

Anthropic is the default provider. Axiomatic works best with Claude models.

provider: anthropic
model: claude-sonnet-4-6
api_key: ${ANTHROPIC_API_KEY}

Available models:

• claude-sonnet-4-6 (default) -- best balance of speed and accuracy
• claude-opus-4-20250514 -- highest accuracy, slower and more expensive

OpenAI

provider: openai
model: gpt-4o
api_key: ${OPENAI_API_KEY}

Available models:

• gpt-4o -- recommended for OpenAI users
• gpt-4o-mini -- faster, lower cost, slightly less accurate

Per-Test Overrides

Individual tests can override the provider, model, timeout, and iteration limits:

# axiomatic/security-audit.yml
condition: >
  All user inputs are sanitized before being used in SQL queries.
on:
  - "src/db/**/*.ts"
severity: error
provider: anthropic
model: claude-opus-4-20250514  # Use the most capable model for security checks
timeout: 120
max_iterations: 50

Use per-test overrides to balance cost and accuracy: fast models for code quality checks, the most capable model for security-critical tests.

Cache Settings

Axiomatic caches results to avoid re-running tests when code has not changed. The cache is stored in a local SQLite database at .axiomatic/cache.db.

You can customize the cache directory:

cache_dir: .axiomatic     # Default: .axiomatic

Use --no-cache with axm run to bypass the cache and re-run all tests.

For more details on caching behavior, see Caching.

Cost Management

Model Selection by Use Case

Scoping with on

Narrow the on glob to limit how many files the agent examines. src/api/**/*.ts is cheaper than scanning the entire src/ tree.

Dry Run

Preview what would run and estimate costs before making API calls:

axm run --dry-run