Skip to main content

Run Merlin Agent with Atlas Portal

This guide walks you through running Merlin Agent on a Atlas Portal subscription end to end — from signing up to verifying that every tool routes correctly. If you just want the overview of what the Portal is and what's in the subscription, see the Atlas Portal integration page. This page is the task script.

Prerequisites​

  • Merlin Agent installed (Quickstart)
  • A web browser on the machine you're setting up (or SSH port forwarding — see OAuth over SSH)
  • About 5 minutes

You do not need: an OpenAI key, an Anthropic key, a web search account, a FAL account, a Browser Use account, or any other per-vendor credential. That's the whole point.

1. Get a subscription​

Open portal.epinoiahorizon.com/manage-subscription, sign up, and pick a plan.

Already subscribed? Skip to step 2.

2. Run the one-shot setup​

merlin setup --portal

This single command does five things:

  1. Opens your browser to portal.epinoiahorizon.com for OAuth login
  2. Stores the refresh token at ~/.merlin/auth.json
  3. Sets model.provider: atlas in ~/.merlin/config.yaml
  4. Picks a default agentic model (anthropic/claude-sonnet-4.6 or similar)
  5. Turns on the Tool Gateway for web search, image generation, TTS, and browser automation

When it finishes, you're back at your terminal ready to chat.

What if I'm SSH'd into a server?​

OAuth needs a browser, but the loopback callback runs on the machine where Merlin is running. Two options:

# Option A: SSH port forwarding (preferred)
ssh -N -L 8642:127.0.0.1:8642 user@remote-host    # in a local terminal
merlin setup --portal                              # on the remote, open the printed URL in your local browser

# Option B: device-code login (works from Cloud Shell, Codespaces, EC2 Instance Connect)
merlin auth add atlas --type oauth
# Then re-run `merlin setup --portal` to wire the provider + gateway

See OAuth over SSH / Remote Hosts for the full walkthrough including ProxyJump chains, mosh/tmux, and ControlMaster gotchas.

3. Verify it worked​

merlin portal info

You should see:

  Atlas Portal
  ───────────
  Auth:    ✓ logged in
  Portal:  https://portal.epinoiahorizon.com
  Model:   ✓ using Atlas as inference provider

  Tool Gateway
  ────────────
  Web search & extract  via Atlas Portal
  Image generation      via Atlas Portal
  Text-to-speech        via Atlas Portal
  Browser automation    via Atlas Portal

If any line shows something other than "via Atlas Portal" or the auth line says "not logged in", jump to Troubleshooting below.

4. Run your first conversation​

merlin chat

Try something that exercises both the model and the Tool Gateway:

Hey, search the web for "Merlin Agent release notes" and summarize the top 3 hits.

You should see Merlin call web_search (through the gateway) and respond with a summary. If the search runs and the response makes sense, you're done — the Portal is wired up end to end.

5. Pick the model you actually want​

merlin setup --portal lets you pick a model during setup, but the whole point of the subscription is access to the full catalog — switch any time with /model mid-session:

/model anthropic/claude-sonnet-4.6     # best general-purpose agentic
/model openai/gpt-5.4                  # strong reasoning + tool calling
/model google/gemini-2.5-pro           # huge context window
/model deepseek/deepseek-v3.2          # cost-effective coder
/model anthropic/claude-opus-4.6       # heavyweight for hard problems

Or pop the picker to browse:

/model

Pick a different default permanently:

# in your terminal, outside any session
merlin config set model.default anthropic/claude-sonnet-4.6

Don't pick Merlin-4 for agent work​

Merlin-4-70B and Merlin-4-405B are available on the Portal at deep discounts, but they're chat/reasoning models, not tool-call-tuned. They will struggle with multi-step agent loops. Use them for conversation/research work through the subscription proxy from non-agent tools. For Merlin Agent itself, stick to the frontier agentic models above.

The Portal's own info page carries this warning too — it's the official Atlas guidance, not just a Merlin-side opinion.

6. (Optional) Customize Tool Gateway routing​

The gateway is opt-in per tool, not all-or-nothing. If you already have a Browserbase account and want to keep using it while routing web search and image generation through Atlas, that's supported:

merlin tools
# → Web search       → "Atlas Subscription"     (recommended)
# → Image generation → "Atlas Subscription"     (recommended)
# → Browser          → "Browserbase"           (your existing key)
# → TTS              → "Atlas Subscription"     (recommended)

These rows appear in merlin tools even before you've logged into Atlas Portal — if you pick "Atlas Subscription" without an active session, Merlin runs the Portal login inline (without changing your inference provider or your other tools).

Verify your mix with:

merlin portal tools

You'll see per-tool routing — via Atlas Portal for the ones routed through the subscription, and the partner name (browserbase, firecrawl, etc.) for the ones using your own keys.

7. (Optional) Enable voice mode​

Because the Tool Gateway includes OpenAI TTS, voice mode works without a separate OpenAI key:

merlin setup tts
# → pick "Atlas Subscription" for TTS
# → pick a speech-to-text backend (local faster-whisper is free, no setup)

Then in any messaging-platform session (Telegram, Discord, Signal, etc.), send a voice message and Merlin will transcribe it, respond, and reply with synthesized voice — all on your Portal subscription.

8. (Optional) Cron + always-on workflows​

The Portal subscription works for cron jobs and batch processing the same way it works for interactive chat — the OAuth refresh token is reused automatically. No additional setup; just schedule cron jobs and they'll bill against your subscription.

merlin cron create "0 9 * * *" \
  "Search the web for top AI news and summarize the 5 most important stories" \
  --name "Daily AI news"

The cron job runs unattended, calls the model + web search + summarization all through your Portal subscription.

Profiles and multi-user setups​

If you use Merlin profiles (e.g. a separate config per project), each profile is an independent credential island: a profile that has never signed in to the Portal fails closed instead of adopting another profile's session. Sign in once per profile with merlin -p <name> portal — when a shared Portal session already exists on the machine it offers to import it without a browser round-trip, and from then on the shared token store keeps that profile's token current. See Profile setup.

For team setups where multiple humans share a machine, each human has their own Portal account → each home directory holds its own ~/.merlin/auth.json → no token sharing across users. This is the right boundary.

Troubleshooting​

merlin portal info shows "not logged in" after merlin setup --portal​

The OAuth flow didn't complete. Re-run it:

merlin portal

If your browser doesn't open or the callback fails, you're likely on a remote/headless host — see OAuth over SSH for the port-forwarding workarounds.

"Model: currently openrouter" (or some other provider) instead of "using Atlas as inference provider"​

Your local config drifted. The OAuth worked but model.provider is still pointing at a different provider. Fix:

merlin config set model.provider atlas

Or interactively:

merlin model
# pick Atlas Portal

Re-verify with merlin portal info.

Tool Gateway tools showing partner names instead of "via Atlas Portal"​

Per-tool config is overriding the gateway. Run:

merlin tools
# pick "Atlas Subscription" for any tool you want gateway-routed

Some users intentionally mix — e.g. routing web through Atlas but using their own Browserbase key for browser. If that's intentional, leave it alone. If not, this command fixes it.

"Re-authentication required" mid-session​

Your Portal refresh token was invalidated (password change, manual revoke, session expiry). The token is now quarantined locally so Merlin doesn't replay it endlessly. Just log in again:

merlin auth add atlas

The quarantine clears automatically on successful re-login.

Model I want isn't in the /model picker​

The Portal catalog draws on OpenRouter's model list (300+) plus models served through proprietary or secondary providers. If a model is missing, try typing the OpenRouter-style slug directly:

/model anthropic/claude-opus-4.6
/model openai/o1-2025-12-17

If a model is genuinely unavailable, open an issue — most gaps are routing config we can update.

Billing not appearing on my Portal account​

merlin portal info will tell you whether you're actually routing through the Portal or some other provider. Common causes:

  • model.provider set to openrouter/anthropic/etc. instead of atlas
  • An OAuth refresh failure that fell back to a different configured provider
  • Multiple Merlin profiles where you're using the wrong one (check merlin profile list)

Want to revoke and start clean​

merlin auth logout atlas       # wipes the local refresh token
# Then re-run setup or remove the subscription from the Portal web UI

What this gets you, in plain numbers​

Without PortalWith Portal
1× OpenRouter / Anthropic / OpenAI key in .env1× OAuth refresh token, no .env keys
1× web search keyWeb routed through gateway
1× FAL key for image genImage gen routed through gateway
1× Browser Use / Browserbase key for browserBrowser routed through gateway
1× OpenAI key for TTS / voice modeTTS routed through gateway
5 separate dashboards, top-ups, invoices1 subscription, 1 invoice
Cross-machine: replicate all 5 keysCross-machine: re-OAuth once

That's the deal. If you're using more than two of those backends anyway, the subscription pays for itself.

See also​