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Documentation Index

Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.openclaw.ai/llms.txt

Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

Model failover

Auth profile rotation, cooldowns, and how that interacts with fallbacks.

Model providers

Quick provider overview and examples.

Agent runtimes

PI, Codex, and other agent loop runtimes.

Configuration reference

Model config keys.
Model refs choose a provider and model. They do not usually choose the low-level agent runtime. For example, openai/gpt-5.5 can run through the normal OpenAI provider path or through the Codex app-server runtime, depending on agents.defaults.agentRuntime.id. See Agent runtimes.

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How model selection works

OpenClaw selects models in this order:
1

Primary model

agents.defaults.model.primary (or agents.defaults.model).
2

Fallbacks

agents.defaults.model.fallbacks (in order).
3

Provider auth failover

Auth failover happens inside a provider before moving to the next model.

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Selection source and fallback behavior

The same provider/model can mean different things depending on where it came from:
  • Configured defaults (agents.defaults.model.primary and agent-specific primaries) are the normal starting point and use agents.defaults.model.fallbacks.
  • Auto fallback selections are temporary recovery state. They are stored with modelOverrideSource: "auto" so later turns can keep using the fallback chain without probing a known-bad primary first.
  • User session selections are exact. /model, the model picker, session_status(model=...), and sessions.patch store modelOverrideSource: "user"; if that selected provider/model is unreachable, OpenClaw fails visibly instead of falling through to another configured model.
  • Cron --model / payload model is a per-job primary. It still uses configured fallbacks unless the job supplies explicit payload fallbacks (use fallbacks: [] for a strict cron run).
  • CLI default-model and allowlist pickers respect models.mode: "replace" by listing explicit models.providers.*.models instead of loading the full built-in catalog.
  • The Control UI model picker asks the Gateway for its configured model view: agents.defaults.models when present, otherwise explicit models.providers.*.models, otherwise the full catalog so fresh installs are not blank.

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Quick model policy

  • Set your primary to the strongest latest-generation model available to you.
  • Use fallbacks for cost/latency-sensitive tasks and lower-stakes chat.
  • For tool-enabled agents or untrusted inputs, avoid older/weaker model tiers.
If you don’t want to hand-edit config, run onboarding: 
openclaw onboard
It can set up model + auth for common providers, including OpenAI Code (Codex) subscription (OAuth) and Anthropic (API key or Claude CLI).

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Config keys (overview)

  • agents.defaults.model.primary and agents.defaults.model.fallbacks
  • agents.defaults.imageModel.primary and agents.defaults.imageModel.fallbacks
  • agents.defaults.pdfModel.primary and agents.defaults.pdfModel.fallbacks
  • agents.defaults.imageGenerationModel.primary and agents.defaults.imageGenerationModel.fallbacks
  • agents.defaults.videoGenerationModel.primary and agents.defaults.videoGenerationModel.fallbacks
  • agents.defaults.models (allowlist + aliases + provider params)
  • models.providers (custom providers written into models.json)
Model refs are normalized to lowercase. Provider aliases like z.ai/* normalize to zai/*.Provider configuration examples (including OpenCode) live in OpenCode.

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Safe allowlist edits

Use additive writes when updating agents.defaults.models by hand: 
openclaw config set agents.defaults.models '{"openai/gpt-5.4":{}}' --strict-json --merge
openclaw config set protects model/provider maps from accidental clobbers. A plain object assignment to agents.defaults.models, models.providers, or models.providers.<id>.models is rejected when it would remove existing entries. Use --merge for additive changes; use --replace only when the provided value should become the complete target value.Interactive provider setup and openclaw configure --section model also merge provider-scoped selections into the existing allowlist, so adding Codex, Ollama, or another provider does not drop unrelated model entries. Configure preserves an existing agents.defaults.model.primary when provider auth is re-applied. Explicit default-setting commands such as openclaw models auth login --provider <id> --set-default and openclaw models set <model> still replace agents.defaults.model.primary.

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”Model is not allowed” (and why replies stop)

If agents.defaults.models is set, it becomes the allowlist for /model and for session overrides. When a user selects a model that isn’t in that allowlist, OpenClaw returns: 
Model "provider/model" is not allowed. Use /model to list available models.
This happens before a normal reply is generated, so the message can feel like it “didn’t respond.” The fix is to either:
  • Add the model to agents.defaults.models, or
  • Clear the allowlist (remove agents.defaults.models), or
  • Pick a model from /model list.
For local/GGUF models, store the full provider-prefixed ref in the allowlist, for example ollama/gemma4:26b, lmstudio/Gemma4-26b-a4-it-gguf, or the exact provider/model shown by openclaw models list --provider <provider>. Bare local filenames or display names are not enough when the allowlist is active. Example allowlist config: 
{
  agent: {
    model: { primary: "anthropic/claude-sonnet-4-6" },
    models: {
      "anthropic/claude-sonnet-4-6": { alias: "Sonnet" },
      "anthropic/claude-opus-4-6": { alias: "Opus" },
    },
  },
}

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Switching models in chat (/model)

You can switch models for the current session without restarting: 
/model
/model list
/model 3
/model openai/gpt-5.4
/model status
  • /model (and /model list) is a compact, numbered picker (model family + available providers).
  • On Discord, /model and /models open an interactive picker with provider and model dropdowns plus a Submit step.
  • /models add is deprecated and now returns a deprecation message instead of registering models from chat.
  • /model <#> selects from that picker.
  • /model persists the new session selection immediately.
  • If the agent is idle, the next run uses the new model right away.
  • If a run is already active, OpenClaw marks a live switch as pending and only restarts into the new model at a clean retry point.
  • If tool activity or reply output has already started, the pending switch can stay queued until a later retry opportunity or the next user turn.
  • A user-selected /model ref is strict for that session: if the selected provider/model is unreachable, the reply fails visibly instead of silently answering from agents.defaults.model.fallbacks. This is different from configured defaults and cron job primaries, which can still use fallback chains.
  • /model status is the detailed view (auth candidates and, when configured, provider endpoint baseUrl + api mode).
  • Model refs are parsed by splitting on the first /. Use provider/model when typing /model <ref>.
  • If the model ID itself contains / (OpenRouter-style), you must include the provider prefix (example: /model openrouter/moonshotai/kimi-k2).
  • If you omit the provider, OpenClaw resolves the input in this order:
    1. alias match
    2. unique configured-provider match for that exact unprefixed model id
    3. deprecated fallback to the configured default provider — if that provider no longer exposes the configured default model, OpenClaw instead falls back to the first configured provider/model to avoid surfacing a stale removed-provider default.
Full command behavior/config: Slash commands.

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CLI commands

openclaw models list
openclaw models status
openclaw models set <provider/model>
openclaw models set-image <provider/model>

openclaw models aliases list
openclaw models aliases add <alias> <provider/model>
openclaw models aliases remove <alias>

openclaw models fallbacks list
openclaw models fallbacks add <provider/model>
openclaw models fallbacks remove <provider/model>
openclaw models fallbacks clear

openclaw models image-fallbacks list
openclaw models image-fallbacks add <provider/model>
openclaw models image-fallbacks remove <provider/model>
openclaw models image-fallbacks clear
openclaw models (no subcommand) is a shortcut for models status.

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models list

Shows configured models by default. Useful flags:
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--all
boolean
Full catalog. Includes bundled provider-owned static catalog rows before auth is configured, so discovery-only views can show models that are unavailable until you add matching provider credentials.
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--local
boolean
Local providers only.
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--provider <id>
string
Filter by provider id, for example moonshot. Display labels from interactive pickers are not accepted.
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--plain
boolean
One model per line.
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--json
boolean
Machine-readable output.

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models status

Shows the resolved primary model, fallbacks, image model, and an auth overview of configured providers. It also surfaces OAuth expiry status for profiles found in the auth store (warns within 24h by default). --plain prints only the resolved primary model.
  • OAuth status is always shown (and included in --json output). If a configured provider has no credentials, models status prints a Missing auth section.
  • JSON includes auth.oauth (warn window + profiles) and auth.providers (effective auth per provider, including env-backed credentials). auth.oauth is auth-store profile health only; env-only providers do not appear there.
  • Use --check for automation (exit 1 when missing/expired, 2 when expiring).
  • Use --probe for live auth checks; probe rows can come from auth profiles, env credentials, or models.json.
  • If explicit auth.order.<provider> omits a stored profile, probe reports excluded_by_auth_order instead of trying it. If auth exists but no probeable model can be resolved for that provider, probe reports status: no_model.
Auth choice is provider/account dependent. For always-on gateway hosts, API keys are usually the most predictable; Claude CLI reuse and existing Anthropic OAuth/token profiles are also supported.
Example (Claude CLI): 
claude auth login
openclaw models status

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Scanning (OpenRouter free models)

openclaw models scan inspects OpenRouter’s free model catalog and can optionally probe models for tool and image support.
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--no-probe
boolean
Skip live probes (metadata only).
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--min-params <b>
number
Minimum parameter size (billions).
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--max-age-days <days>
number
Skip older models.
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--provider <name>
string
Provider prefix filter.
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--max-candidates <n>
number
Fallback list size.
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--set-default
boolean
Set agents.defaults.model.primary to the first selection.
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--set-image
boolean
Set agents.defaults.imageModel.primary to the first image selection.
The OpenRouter /models catalog is public, so metadata-only scans can list free candidates without a key. Probing and inference still require an OpenRouter API key (from auth profiles or OPENROUTER_API_KEY). If no key is available, openclaw models scan falls back to metadata-only output and leaves config unchanged. Use --no-probe to request metadata-only mode explicitly.
Scan results are ranked by:
  1. Image support
  2. Tool latency
  3. Context size
  4. Parameter count
Input:
  • OpenRouter /models list (filter :free)
  • Live probes require OpenRouter API key from auth profiles or OPENROUTER_API_KEY (see Environment variables)
  • Optional filters: --max-age-days, --min-params, --provider, --max-candidates
  • Request/probe controls: --timeout, --concurrency
When live probes run in a TTY, you can select fallbacks interactively. In non-interactive mode, pass --yes to accept defaults. Metadata-only results are informational; --set-default and --set-image require live probes so OpenClaw does not configure an unusable keyless OpenRouter model.

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Models registry (models.json)

Custom providers in models.providers are written into models.json under the agent directory (default ~/.openclaw/agents/<agentId>/agent/models.json). This file is merged by default unless models.mode is set to replace.
Merge mode precedence for matching provider IDs:
  • Non-empty baseUrl already present in the agent models.json wins.
  • Non-empty apiKey in the agent models.json wins only when that provider is not SecretRef-managed in current config/auth-profile context.
  • SecretRef-managed provider apiKey values are refreshed from source markers (ENV_VAR_NAME for env refs, secretref-managed for file/exec refs) instead of persisting resolved secrets.
  • SecretRef-managed provider header values are refreshed from source markers (secretref-env:ENV_VAR_NAME for env refs, secretref-managed for file/exec refs).
  • Empty or missing agent apiKey/baseUrl fall back to config models.providers.
  • Other provider fields are refreshed from config and normalized catalog data.
Marker persistence is source-authoritative: OpenClaw writes markers from the active source config snapshot (pre-resolution), not from resolved runtime secret values. This applies whenever OpenClaw regenerates models.json, including command-driven paths like openclaw agent.