> For clean Markdown of any page, append .md to the page URL.
> For a complete documentation index, see https://docs.nvidia.com/nemo/datadesigner/llms.txt.
> For full documentation content, see https://docs.nvidia.com/nemo/datadesigner/llms-full.txt.
> For AI client integration (Claude Code, Cursor, etc.), connect to the MCP server at https://docs.nvidia.com/nemo/datadesigner/_mcp/server.

# Default Model Settings

Data Designer ships with pre-configured model providers and model configurations that make it easy to start generating synthetic data without manual setup.

## Model Providers

Data Designer includes a few default model providers that are configured automatically:

### NVIDIA Provider (`nvidia`)

* **Endpoint**: `https://integrate.api.nvidia.com/v1`
* **API Key**: Set via `NVIDIA_API_KEY` environment variable
* **Models**: Access to NVIDIA's hosted models from [build.nvidia.com](https://build.nvidia.com)
* **Getting Started**: Sign up and get your API key at [build.nvidia.com](https://build.nvidia.com)

The NVIDIA provider gives you access to state-of-the-art models including Nemotron and other NVIDIA-optimized models.

### OpenAI Provider (`openai`)

* **Endpoint**: `https://api.openai.com/v1`
* **API Key**: Set via `OPENAI_API_KEY` environment variable
* **Models**: Access to OpenAI's model catalog
* **Getting Started**: Get your API key from [platform.openai.com/api-keys](https://platform.openai.com/api-keys)

The OpenAI provider gives you access to GPT models and other OpenAI offerings.

### OpenRouter Provider (`openrouter`)

* **Endpoint**: `https://openrouter.ai/api/v1`
* **API Key**: Set via `OPENROUTER_API_KEY` environment variable
* **Models**: Access to a wide variety of models through OpenRouter's unified API
* **Getting Started**: Get your API key from [openrouter.ai](https://openrouter.ai)

The OpenRouter provider gives you access to a unified interface for many different language models from various providers.

## Model Configurations

Data Designer provides pre-configured model aliases for common use cases. When you create a `DataDesignerConfigBuilder` without specifying `model_configs`, these default configurations are automatically available.

### NVIDIA Models

The following model configurations are automatically available when `NVIDIA_API_KEY` is set:

| Alias              | Model                               | Use Case                       | Inference Parameters                                                     |
| ------------------ | ----------------------------------- | ------------------------------ | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| `nvidia-text`      | `nvidia/nemotron-3-nano-30b-a3b`    | General text generation        | `temperature=1.0, top_p=1.0`                                             |
| `nvidia-reasoning` | `nvidia/nemotron-3-super-120b-a12b` | Reasoning and analysis tasks   | `temperature=1.0, top_p=0.95, extra_body={"reasoning_effort": "medium"}` |
| `nvidia-vision`    | `nvidia/nemotron-nano-12b-v2-vl`    | Vision and image understanding | `temperature=0.85, top_p=0.95`                                           |
| `nvidia-embedding` | `nvidia/llama-3.2-nv-embedqa-1b-v2` | Text embeddings                | `encoding_format="float", extra_body={"input_type": "query"}`            |

### OpenAI Models

The following model configurations are automatically available when `OPENAI_API_KEY` is set:

| Alias              | Model                    | Use Case                       | Inference Parameters           |
| ------------------ | ------------------------ | ------------------------------ | ------------------------------ |
| `openai-text`      | `gpt-4.1`                | General text generation        | `temperature=0.85, top_p=0.95` |
| `openai-reasoning` | `gpt-5`                  | Reasoning and analysis tasks   | `temperature=0.35, top_p=0.95` |
| `openai-vision`    | `gpt-5`                  | Vision and image understanding | `temperature=0.85, top_p=0.95` |
| `openai-embedding` | `text-embedding-3-large` | Text embeddings                | `encoding_format="float"`      |

### OpenRouter Models

The following model configurations are automatically available when `OPENROUTER_API_KEY` is set:

| Alias                  | Model                                                | Use Case                       | Inference Parameters           |
| ---------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------ | ------------------------------ |
| `openrouter-text`      | `nvidia/nemotron-3-nano-30b-a3b`                     | General text generation        | `temperature=1.0, top_p=1.0`   |
| `openrouter-reasoning` | `openai/gpt-oss-20b`                                 | Reasoning and analysis tasks   | `temperature=0.35, top_p=0.95` |
| `openrouter-vision`    | `nvidia/nemotron-3-nano-omni-30b-a3b-reasoning:free` | Vision and image understanding | `temperature=0.60, top_p=0.95` |
| `openrouter-embedding` | `openai/text-embedding-3-large`                      | Text embeddings                | `encoding_format="float"`      |

## Using Default Settings

Default settings work out of the box - no configuration needed! Simply create `DataDesigner` and `DataDesignerConfigBuilder` instances without any arguments, and reference the default model aliases in your column configurations.

For a complete example showing how to use default model settings, see the **[Getting Started](/)** page.

### How Default Model Providers and Configurations Work

When the Data Designer library or the CLI is initialized, default model configurations and providers are stored in the Data Designer home directory for easy access and customization if they do not already exist. These configuration files serve as the single source of truth for model settings. By default they are saved to the following paths:

* **Model Configs**: `~/.data-designer/model_configs.yaml`
* **Model Providers**: `~/.data-designer/model_providers.yaml`

While these files provide a convenient way to specify settings for your model providers and configuration you use most often, they can always be set programmatically in your SDG workflow.

You can customize the home directory location by setting the `DATA_DESIGNER_HOME` environment variable:

```bash
# In your .bashrc, .zshrc, or similar
export DATA_DESIGNER_HOME="/path/to/your/custom/directory"
```

These configuration files can be modified in two ways:

1. **Using the CLI**: Run CLI commands to add, update, or delete model configurations and providers
2. **Manual editing**: Directly edit the YAML files with your preferred text editor

Both methods operate on the same files, ensuring consistency across your entire Data Designer setup.

## Important Notes

While default model configurations are always available, you need to set the appropriate API key environment variable (`NVIDIA_API_KEY`, `OPENAI_API_KEY`, or `OPENROUTER_API_KEY`) to actually use the corresponding models for data generation. Without a valid API key, any attempt to generate data using that provider's models will fail.

The default model providers call hosted endpoints operated by NVIDIA, OpenAI, OpenRouter, or their upstream providers. Provider terms and privacy practices apply independently of Data Designer, and free or trial endpoints may log request data for security, operations, or product improvement. Do not submit confidential information or personal data, including faces, voices, screenshots, regulated data, or other sensitive content, unless the selected provider and endpoint are approved for your use case.

The `default:` key in `~/.data-designer/model_providers.yaml` and the registry-level "default provider" concept are **deprecated** and will be removed in a future release. Specify `provider=` explicitly on every `ModelConfig` instead — the built-in defaults above already do this, and a `DeprecationWarning` is now emitted whenever the legacy routing is exercised. See [issue #589](https://github.com/NVIDIA-NeMo/DataDesigner/issues/589).

Store your API keys in environment variables rather than hardcoding them in your scripts:

```bash
# In your .bashrc, .zshrc, or similar
export NVIDIA_API_KEY="your-api-key-here"
export OPENAI_API_KEY="your-openai-api-key-here"
export OPENROUTER_API_KEY="your-openrouter-api-key-here"
```

## See Also

* **[Custom Model Settings](/concepts/models/custom-model-settings)**: Learn how to create custom providers and model configurations
* **[Configure Model Settings With the CLI](/concepts/models/configure-with-the-cli)**: Learn how to use the CLI to manage model settings
* **[Model Configurations](/concepts/models/model-configs)**: Learn about model configurations