---
title: "Models Overview"
description: "Understanding Liutong's model naming scheme and available model families"
---

Liutong offers four model families, each optimized for a different category of tasks. All models are accessed through the same OpenAI-compatible API.

## Naming scheme

Liutong models follow a structured naming convention: **colour-animal-generation**.

| Component | Meaning | Example |
|---|---|---|
| **Colour** | Task category | `crimson` = chat, `indigo` = reasoning, `amber` = media, `jade` = embeddings |
| **Animal** | Model family | `falcon`, `owl`, `phoenix`, `mole` |
| **Number** | Generation | `4` = current generation |

This naming scheme keeps model identifiers short, memorable, and easy to type in code.

## Available models

| Model | Category | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| [`crimson-falcon-4`](/docs/models/crimson-falcon-4) | Chat | General text generation, conversation, code, summarization |
| [`indigo-owl-4`](/docs/models/indigo-owl-4) | Reasoning | Complex multi-step reasoning, math, logic, analysis |
| [`amber-phoenix-4`](/docs/models/amber-phoenix-4) | Media | Image and video generation |
| [`jade-mole-4`](/docs/models/jade-mole-4) | Embeddings | Text embeddings for search, clustering, and RAG |

## Choosing a model

- **Need a general-purpose assistant?** Use `crimson-falcon-4`.
- **Solving math, logic, or multi-step problems?** Use `indigo-owl-4`.
- **Generating images or video?** Use `amber-phoenix-4`.
- **Building search or retrieval systems?** Use `jade-mole-4`.

## Listing models programmatically

You can retrieve the list of available models via the API:

```bash
curl https://api.liutong.llby.org/v1/models \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer lt_your_api_key"
```

See the [List Models](/docs/api-reference/list-models) endpoint for details.