## The problem
Issue huggingface/smolagents#429 (closed, 10 comments): Groq API incompatible with smolagents system messages when using OpenAI endpoint via LiteLLMModel. Code: from smolagents import CodeAgent, LiteLLMModel. model = LiteLLMModel("openai/deepseek-r1-distill-llama-70b", api_base="https://api.groq.com/openai/v1", api_key value [redacted]). agent = CodeAgent(tools=[], model=model, add_base_tools=False, verbosity_level=2). Running a simple task fails due to system message issues.

## What to do
[Symbolk (commenter)]: Update smolagents to 1.9.2 or newer: the Groq incompatibility with system messages through LiteLLMModel was a version bug, not a config problem. If you are on an older smolagents and hitting system-message errors against Groq's OpenAI-compatible endpoint, run pip install -U smolagents first before touching your model setup.