{"name":"Agent Provider Depot","contractAsOf":"2026-10-03","stance":"Editorial, dated picks per job; prices only with their source and date.","canonicalFor":["JTBD-scoped Depot Pick (depotPickProviderId) plus whenNotTopPick skip rules","A cite string an agent can paste with no human in the loop","Editorial 0–10 scores with kind, confidence, and asOf (not live benches)","Production insight claims that never silently mutate official scores"],"notCanonicalFor":[{"need":"Live multi-model router and per-token price filters","useInstead":"OpenRouter Models API, or a direct provider / self-hosted gateway","url":"https://openrouter.ai/docs/guides/overview/models"},{"need":"Independent intelligence index, speed, and sourced $/token benches","useInstead":"Artificial Analysis","url":"https://artificialanalysis.ai/methodology/intelligence-benchmarking"},{"need":"Crowd-voted Elo from blind pairwise battles","useInstead":"Arena (LMArena). Depot ranks are editorial_weighted, not Elo.","url":"https://arena.ai/blog/arena-rank"},{"need":"Model weights and which inference hosts serve them","useInstead":"Hugging Face Hub inference-provider mapping","url":"https://huggingface.co/docs/inference-providers/hub-api"},{"need":"Vendor-neutral MCP server metadata","useInstead":"Official MCP Registry","url":"https://github.com/modelcontextprotocol/registry/blob/main/docs/reference/api/official-registry-api.md"},{"need":"Hosted MCP search, install, or tool-level schemas","useInstead":"Glama MCP Directory API (server and remote-connector search; API key required) — Depot only names MCP-related JTBDs and providers","url":"https://glama.ai/mcp/api"},{"need":"Private production traces and eval datasets for one app","useInstead":"LangSmith or the observability vendor you already run","url":"https://docs.smith.langchain.com/"}],"pricing":{"endpoint":"/api/pricing","quote":"/api/quote?jtbd={slug}","normalizedUsdPerMillionTokens":null,"filterable":false,"partialPriceSort":"GET /api/leaderboards?sort=price","reason":"A single normalizedUsdPerMillionTokens is set only when a provider has exactly one sourced token row. Otherwise null, with rows on GET /api/pricing. GET /api/quote?jtbd= lists the Depot Pick's SKUs and the cheapest sourced SKU whose unit matches that job. Chat jobs use input $/1M. Embeddings, speech-to-text, GPU, and search do not borrow a chat rate. sort=price on a job uses that same unit and labels coverage. Units are not coerced."},"rankContract":{"style":"editorial_weighted","scale":"0-10","notAnElo":true,"notComparableTo":["lmarena_elo","artificial_analysis_intelligence_index","openrouter_throughput_p50"],"lockInRiskSort":"GET /api/leaderboards?sort=lockInRisk ranks easier exit first (10 - lockInRisk). The raw field is still higher = worse."},"freshnessPolicy":"Every decide card and alternatives payload stamps score.asOf and lastReviewed from the catalog row. contractAsOf is when this contract shipped, not when a vendor repriced.","zeroHumanPath":["GET /api/hub","GET /api/canonical","GET /api/pricing","GET /api/decide?jtbd={slug}&constraints=","cite the cite field","POST /api/insights"],"endpoints":{"hub":"/api/hub","pricing":"/api/pricing","decide":"/api/decide?jtbd={slug}&constraints=","alternatives":"/api/alternatives?provider={slug}","alternativesHuman":"/alternatives/{slug}","leaderboards":"/api/leaderboards?jtbd={slug}&sort=overall&minConfidence=medium&region=","methodology":"/api/methodology","scan":"research/COMPETITIVE-SCAN-2026-10-03.md"},"honesty":["Do not invent scores, Elo, or token prices.","Do not treat runners-up or category averages as Depot Picks.","Insights never silently mutate official scores."]}