feat(cli): crewai eval --models, and llm_overlay swaps models as well as roles

[joaomdmoura]

Mode 2 — compare models on a deployed crew or flow. The open-source side. One of six PRs that ship together (list below).

What it adds

• crewai.llm_overlay swaps models, not only roles. Keys model:<provider/model> and model:* (MODEL_KEY_PREFIX = "model:"), applied in LLM.__new__, so they reach a bare LLM(...) in a flow step, create_llm, and an agent's llm="..."; a role key still wins for its agent. Matches openai/gpt-4o and gpt-4o alike; a mapped model is never mapped again.
• crewai eval --models "a,b" (+ --deployment UUID): compares models on the project's deployment. Needs crewai login; sends the project id, the models and the project's eval.jsonc; prints the link, progress, then a table (goal · tasks · agents · tools · cost · time, the deployed setup marked, the best starred) and the top suggestions; writes the eval.jsonc it hands back when the project has none. Exit 0 when the comparison finished, 1 when it failed.
• Telemetry cli_usage:eval_models with authenticated, models, models_count — allow-listed per feature in both telemetry classes.
• The project id travels: Mode 1's crewai eval now sends it (it never did — 0 of 53 stored evaluations had one), and crewai deploy create / push send it so AMP can find a project's deployment.

Verified

• 204 passed across test_eval_crew.py, test_plus_api.py, crewai-core smoke, telemetry isolation; 59 passed in the overlay tests (with the anthropic/litellm extras); ruff clean. Rebased on main after fix(cli): crewai eval exits 1 unless the gate passed, and says to log in when nothing was traced unattended #7806 (the two changes to crewai eval are merged: its exit code rule is kept and documented beside --models).
• The overlay ran for real in the end-to-end test: one model:* swapped a flow's bare LLM call, its lone agent and its crew's agent.

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---

Ships together — merge in this order

1. crewAIInc/crewai-evals#58 — the grader (crewai-eval 0.12.0); tag v0.12.0 after merge
2. feat(cli): crewai eval --models, and llm_overlay swaps models as well as roles #7811 — llm_overlay model keys, crewai eval --models, project id on deploy (needs a crewAI release)
3. crewAIInc/crewAI-enterprise#1332 — /evaluate reports to crew-optimize; then pin crewai-eval 0.12.0
4. crewAIInc/crewai-plus#4641 — AMP: find the deployment by project, forward, the member pass (deploy)
5. crewAIInc/crew-optimize#1 — the service and the comparison page (deploy with the grader pinned to v0.12.0)
6. fix(tracing): a refused trace grant runs the crew untraced instead of failing it #7812 — stands alone: a refused trace grant no longer fails the run

Then: redeploy a test crew and a test flow on the new versions and run crewai eval --models against them end to end.

---

Note

Medium Risk
Touches CLI→AMP evaluation/deploy APIs and broad llm_overlay/LLM construction paths used at runtime; behavior is heavily tested but mis-routing models or project ids could affect production evals and deployments.

Overview
This PR adds Mode 2 model comparison in the CLI and extends llm_overlay so runs can swap models without editing agent code, while threading [tool.crewai].project_id through deploy and eval so AMP can tie deployments and evaluations to a project.

crewai eval --models (with optional --deployment) runs the project’s AMP deployment once as deployed and once per listed provider/model, polls for a comparison payload, and prints a Rich table (grades, cost, time, baseline marker, “best” stars) plus top suggestions; it requires login, rejects mixing with --run, and records cli_usage:eval_models telemetry with privacy-safe model names. crewai eval for traced runs now sends project_id on create; deploy create/push and zip flows attach the same id from pyproject.toml (read-only, not minted on deploy).

llm_overlay gains model:<name> and model:* keys resolved in LLM.__new__ (and agent/lite-agent via overlay_llm_for), with role keys still winning, no double-mapping, and provider-prefix / aggregator-route matching rules documented in tests.

Smaller changes: PyJWT ≥2.15.0, lock bumps for urllib3 and virtualenv, and a documented oauthlib pip-audit ignore until 4.0.0 clears the release cooldown.

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• lib/crewai/src/crewai/llm.py
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📝 Walkthrough

Walkthrough

The CLI adds model-comparison evaluations and project ID propagation for evaluation and deployment requests. The LLM overlay system adds model-key mappings alongside role-based mappings and applies them during LLM construction and agent setup.

Changes

Project-scoped CLI operations

Layer / File(s)	Summary
Evaluation entry points and project-scoped requests lib/cli/src/crewai_cli/cli.py, lib/cli/src/crewai_cli/experimental/eval_crew.py, lib/cli/src/crewai_cli/plus_api.py, lib/cli/tests/experimental/test_eval_crew.py, lib/cli/tests/test_plus_api.py	crewai eval accepts --models and optional --deployment. Run evaluations pass project IDs to the evaluation API. The API submits model-comparison requests with project ID, model list, and supplied optional fields.
Model-comparison validation and results lib/cli/src/crewai_cli/experimental/eval_crew.py, lib/crewai-core/src/crewai_core/telemetry.py, lib/crewai/src/crewai/telemetry/telemetry.py, lib/cli/tests/experimental/test_eval_crew.py, lib/crewai-core/tests/test_smoke.py, lib/crewai/tests/telemetry/test_tracer_isolation.py	The evaluator validates model lists and deployment IDs, polls comparisons, and displays progress and results. Telemetry records authentication state, model count, and privacy-filtered model names.

Project IDs in deployment requests

Layer / File(s)	Summary
Project IDs in deployment requests lib/cli/src/crewai_cli/deploy/main.py, lib/cli/src/crewai_cli/plus_api.py, lib/crewai-core/src/crewai_core/plus_api.py, lib/cli/tests/deploy/test_deploy_main.py, lib/cli/tests/test_plus_api.py	Deployment commands pass configured project IDs to Git-based, remote, and ZIP deployment requests. API methods include the ID in request bodies or multipart data when present.

LLM model overlays

Layer / File(s)	Summary
Model-key overlay lookup lib/crewai/src/crewai/llm_overlay.py, lib/crewai/tests/test_llm_overlay.py	Overlay mappings support model:<model> and model:* keys. Lookup checks exact and provider-prefix forms before the wildcard. Agent role mappings take precedence.
Mapped LLM construction and settings lib/crewai/src/crewai/llm.py, lib/crewai/src/crewai/utilities/llm_utils.py, lib/crewai/tests/test_llm_overlay.py	LLM construction checks model mappings before normal route resolution. Helpers construct the mapped LLM and carry applicable settings. Tests cover matching, one-step mapping, provider settings, and unavailable SDK cases.
Agent overlay integration lib/crewai/src/crewai/agent/core.py, lib/crewai/src/crewai/lite_agent.py, lib/crewai/tests/test_llm_overlay.py	Agent and LiteAgent setup use the shared overlay resolver. Agent role changes preserve the previous stream setting when both LLMs are BaseLLM instances.

Sequence Diagram(s)

sequenceDiagram
  participant CLI as crewai eval
  participant Evaluator as eval_models
  participant PlusAPI
  participant AMP
  CLI->>Evaluator: models and optional deployment ID
  Evaluator->>PlusAPI: project ID, models, config, deployment ID
  PlusAPI->>AMP: submit comparison request
  AMP-->>Evaluator: evaluation ID and status
  Evaluator->>PlusAPI: poll evaluation
  PlusAPI->>AMP: request comparison status
  AMP-->>Evaluator: progress and comparison result
  Evaluator-->>CLI: grades, cost, time, suggestions

Loading

Priority: ➖ Normal

Merge Risk: ⚪ Minimal · up to e6386

Model comparisons, project association, and model overlays have no established concrete failure in this change; normal build and test checks remain.

Security Architecture Review

Security architecture risk: 🟡 Moderate · up to e6386

A signed-in user can now request a comparison using a project identifier and an optional deployment identifier. The visible changes do not establish how permission to use that deployment is checked. No unauthorized access was demonstrated.

Retained concerns

• Medium · security · inferred: The new comparison request accepts a locally obtained project ID and an optional user-supplied deployment UUID. Whether the service binds both to the authenticated account before locating or running a deployment is unverified; the client-side login and UUID-format checks do not establish that authorization. This is a boundary proof gap, not an observed bypass.

Security review details

Security Blast Radius

• inferred — A comparison can target a deployment selected by project ID or supplied UUID. Cross-account reach would require a failure in the receiving service's authorization; that behavior is not established by the reviewed source.

Trust Boundaries and Controls

• observed — The comparison path requires a saved login; the client restricts where that credential is sent. Model-list limits and deployment UUID validation constrain request shape but are not deployment authorization checks.

Resilience and Maintainability Implications

• observed — Polling bounds consecutive transport or server failures and rejects a completed response lacking comparison rows. An interrupted client does not claim to cancel the remote evaluation.

Hardening Proposals

• proposed — Confirm that the receiving service authorizes the authenticated account against the selected deployment and verifies its project association before starting work or returning results, including when an explicit deployment UUID is supplied.

🚥 Pre-merge checks | ✅ 4 | ❌ 1

❌ Failed checks (1 warning)

Check name	Status	Explanation	Resolution
Docstring Coverage	⚠️ Warning	Docstring coverage is 51.45% which is insufficient. The required threshold is 80.00%. Docstring coverage is scoped to functions touched by this diff. Analyzed 173 functions across 19 files.	Write docstrings for the functions missing them to satisfy the coverage threshold.

✅ Passed checks (4 passed)

Check name	Status	Explanation
Title check	✅ Passed	The title clearly identifies both primary changes: model comparison through crewai eval --models and model- and role-based llm_overlay swaps.
Description check	✅ Passed	The description provides a detailed summary, verification results, additional context, merge order, and risk information. It does not include the required linked issue under ## Related issue, but th…
Linked Issues check	✅ Passed	Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.
Out of Scope Changes check	✅ Passed	Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.

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Actionable comments posted: 1

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Inline comments:
Review comments at @lib/cli/src/crewai_cli/experimental/eval_crew.py:
- Around line 896-917: Update _record_models_usage to avoid sending
user-supplied model names in anonymous telemetry; derive the models attribute
from provider prefixes only, deduplicating and normalizing them while preserving
models_count. Update the corresponding telemetry attribute comments and test
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• lib/cli/src/crewai_cli/cli.py
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• lib/cli/src/crewai_cli/experimental/eval_crew.py
• lib/cli/src/crewai_cli/plus_api.py
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• lib/cli/tests/test_plus_api.py
• lib/crewai-core/src/crewai_core/plus_api.py
• lib/crewai-core/src/crewai_core/telemetry.py
• lib/crewai-core/tests/test_smoke.py
• lib/crewai/src/crewai/agent/core.py
• lib/crewai/src/crewai/lite_agent.py
• lib/crewai/src/crewai/llm.py
• lib/crewai/src/crewai/llm_overlay.py
• lib/crewai/src/crewai/telemetry/telemetry.py
• lib/crewai/src/crewai/utilities/llm_utils.py
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• lib/crewai/tests/test_llm_overlay.py

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[iris-clawd]

I could not verify the coordinated service contracts or the supported self-hosted server matrix from this repository. Both remain rollout debt.

Not holding this for it, but worth a ticket so it is not forgotten: The supported AMP and self-hosted server-version matrix for project_id deploy payloads is unverified. The coordinated comparison service contracts and released end-to-end path are unverified.

Before merging: 1979 non-generated lines changed, above the 1200 limit.

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only still-valid issues, skip the rest with a brief reason, keep changes
minimal, and validate.

Inline comments:
Review comments at @lib/crewai/src/crewai/llm_overlay.py:
- Around line 209-214: Update _model_forms to include the declared provider
route when a prebuilt LLM’s provider alias differs from the route prefix, so
model:google/gemini-2.5-pro matches an LLM routed as provider="gemini" and
model="gemini-2.5-pro". Preserve existing native-name and provider-route
matching behavior for other models.

Review comments at @lib/crewai/src/crewai/utilities/llm_utils.py:
- Line 295: Update the ImportError fallback to pass the existing is_litellm
value to _build_like instead of hardcoding False, so an explicit LiteLLM choice
is preserved when resolving the declared model fails.

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[iris-clawd]

I couldn't verify the coordinated service contracts or supported self-hosted server matrix here. Both remain rollout debt.

A few small notes inline, nothing blocking.

Not holding this for it, but worth a ticket so it is not forgotten: Supported AMP and self-hosted versions accepting project-id deploy payloads. Coordinated services honoring the released comparison and overlay contracts.

Someone else should sign off on this too: adds public CLI flags and semantics (--models, --deployment) and a public llm_overlay key format (model:<model>, model:*).

[joaomdmoura]

Review round (337c660, rebased on main):

• git create sends project_id once, at the top level, where AMP reads it on every deploy route.
• The redeploy body stays as it is, with no retry. AMP has ignored keys it does not name on that route since the v1 API (2024-08) and never raises on unpermitted params. Details are in the thread.
• The other bot threads were answered earlier. Nothing else is open.

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[joaomdmoura]

pip-audit was failing on advisories published against locked dependencies, not on this PR's code. Fixed here so the scan passes:

• 06dbd09ca is fix(deps): bump pyjwt to >=2.14.0 and defer oauthlib 4.0.0 #7823's fix, cherry-picked: pyjwt ≥ 2.14.0 and a dated ignore for oauthlib until 4.0.0 clears the cooldown. If fix(deps): bump pyjwt to >=2.14.0 and defer oauthlib 4.0.0 #7823 merges first, the rebase drops it.
• 038f8f013 covers advisories published today against the versions fix(deps): bump pyjwt to >=2.14.0 and defer oauthlib 4.0.0 #7823 locks:
  • PyJWT 2.14.0 → 2.15.0 (GHSA-42vr-xj54-vc7v)
  • urllib3 2.7.0 → 2.8.0 (GHSA-8988-9cw3-xx77, GHSA-gh4c-6fx4-qh6g, GHSA-vxq7-64xx-v4gw)
  • virtualenv 21.4.2 → 21.13.0 (PYSEC-2026-4011..4014)
  • All three fixes are older than the 3-day exclude-newer cutoff.

CI: all 26 checks pass, pip-audit included.

[alex-clawd]

Approving. This is broad runtime work, but the current head has been hardened around the exact boundaries that could have made model comparison unsafe.

The overlay’s precedence and identity rules are now explicit and tested:

• A role key beats an exact model key, which beats model:*.
• A mapped model is never mapped again, so {model:a→b, model:b→c} stops at b.
• A role override is rebuilt from the caller’s original declaration, not from the intermediate model-key result, so the role keeps the declared endpoint/key/settings.
• Native-provider prefixes may match their stripped form; aggregator routes such as openrouter/openai/gpt-4o never masquerade as the native openai/gpt-4o.
• Provider aliases (google/gemini, etc.) are shared with the actual LLM router rather than duplicated.
• Credentials and endpoints travel only across the same provider. A cross-provider swap gets generation settings but never the old provider’s key or endpoint.
• A caller that explicitly chose LiteLLM stays on LiteLLM, including the missing-native-SDK fallback.

Those are the important invariants; the human review round found each of the places they initially leaked and the current head carries the regressions.

Fresh target construction is preserved by the grader. crewai-eval’s EvalRunner calls target.make() per case/run inside each configuration, so the global weak bookkeeping on mapped instances cannot pin the first comparison model across later configurations. That was the lifecycle edge I most wanted to rule out.

Project identity is sent once at the AMP contract boundary. Git create now matches the multipart routes: top-level project_id, not duplicated inside deploy. Old AMP versions drop the unrecognized top-level key on redeploy, so this is rollout-compatible without a retry path that could duplicate a deploy.

Telemetry privacy is handled carefully. Public catalog models may be emitted by name; fine-tune IDs, Azure deployment names, unknown models, and unknown providers collapse to <provider>/other or other/other. Exact catalog membership rather than prefix matching keeps customer names out.

I ran the focused suites locally with the Anthropic/LiteLLM dependencies and LITELLM_LOCAL_MODEL_COST_MAP=True: 301 passed, 1 skipped, 3 subtests passed. The earlier local LiteLLM failures were its import-time network fetch under pytest’s network guard, not product failures. Full CI is green across Python 3.10–3.13, lint, typing, CodeQL, security review, pip-audit, and Bugbot.

Merge/release order: crewai-evals #58 and the v0.12.0 tag already exist. After this merges, cut/release the CrewAI version before Enterprise #1332 and AMP #4641 rely on these overlay/project-id contracts. crew-optimize #1 has already merged, so the remaining backend pieces should still land in the documented order before the end-to-end crew + flow test.

One scope note: the branch also carries dependency-security updates that originated in #7823 and current advisories. They are green in pip-audit, but if #7823 lands first the rebase should drop the duplicate commits so attribution stays clean.