Prerequisites
- A Mac, Linux, or Windows machine with a terminal
- A GMI Cloud account at console.gmicloud.ai
- About 5 minutes
Step 1. Install Droid
Run this command in your terminal:PATH. Append it to your shell config and reload:
~/.zshrc instead of ~/.bashrc if you’re on zsh. On Linux, also install xdg-utils sudo apt-get install xdg-utils) so the browser sign-in works.
Verify the install worked:
Step 2. Sign in and choose BYOK
Launch Droid for the first time:Step 3. Connect GMI Cloud
Store your GMI Cloud key as an environment variable so it stays out of the config file:~/.factory/settings.json:
model to the exact model ID from the Text catalog. The example uses GLM-5.2; swap in any model from the table in Step 4. Add more entries to the customModels array to keep several models on hand.
Note: baseUrl is always https://api.gmi-serving.com/v1, and provider is generic-chat-completion-api because GMI Cloud is OpenAI-compatible. If ~/.factory/settings.json already has settings, add the customModels key alongside them instead of overwriting the file.
GMI Cloud is now connected.
Step 4. Pick a model
Start Droid in any project:
Tip: Factory recommends models with at least 30B parameters for agentic coding. Smaller models work for experimentation but struggle with multi-step engineering tasks.
Step 5. Start coding
You’re all set. Type any task in the prompt and hit Enter:Useful commands
Note: Seeing “No active subscription found” on startup? That’s expected with BYOK. Droid opens on a Factory-managed model that needs a paid plan. Select your GMI model from the Custom models section at the bottom of
/model and the warning no longer applies to your session.
Next steps
- Try Claude Code, Codex, or Cursor with the same GMI account.
- Factory docs: docs.factory.ai