Using agno agents with Claude/GPT from China — OPENAI_BASE_URL relay setup

[holysheep123]

Background

agno is a great framework for building multi-modal AI agents. However, Chinese developers hit connection errors when using OpenAI or Anthropic models because both APIs are blocked by GFW.

Solution

Environment variables

export OPENAI_API_KEY=cr_your_holysheep_key
export OPENAI_BASE_URL=https://api.holysheep.ai/v1

export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=cr_your_key
export ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL=https://api.holysheep.ai

Python configuration with agno

import os
os.environ["OPENAI_API_KEY"] = "cr_your_holysheep_key"
os.environ["OPENAI_BASE_URL"] = "https://api.holysheep.ai/v1"

from agno.agent import Agent
from agno.models.openai import OpenAIChat

# Works in China without VPN!
agent = Agent(
    model=OpenAIChat(id="gpt-5"),
    description="You are a helpful assistant.",
    instructions=["Be concise and helpful"],
    markdown=True
)
agent.print_response("What are the key differences between GPT-5 and Claude Sonnet 4?")

Using Claude with agno

from agno.agent import Agent
from agno.models.anthropic import Claude

agent = Agent(
    model=Claude(
        id="claude-sonnet-4-5",
        api_key="cr_your_key",
        base_url="https://api.holysheep.ai"
    ),
    markdown=True
)
agent.print_response("Write a Python function to parse JSON with error handling")

Multi-agent team from China

from agno.agent import Agent
from agno.team import Team
from agno.models.openai import OpenAIChat

researcher = Agent(name="Researcher", role="Research topics", model=OpenAIChat(id="gpt-5"))
writer = Agent(name="Writer", role="Write content", model=OpenAIChat(id="gpt-5"))

team = Team(agents=[researcher, writer], mode="coordinate")
team.print_response("Write a blog post about agentic AI in 2026")

Get an API Key

Register at holysheep.ai/register — free signup, pay-as-you-go ¥1=$1, WeChat Pay / Alipay. Supports GPT-5, Claude Sonnet 4, Gemini 2.5 Pro, DeepSeek-V3.

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Anyone else building production agno agents from China? Would love to compare architectures 🙏