Providers
NVIDIA
NVIDIA serves open models for free through an OpenAI-compatible API at
https://integrate.api.nvidia.com/v1, authenticated with an API key from
build.nvidia.com. OpenClaw
defaults the NVIDIA provider to Nemotron 3 Ultra, NVIDIA's 550B total / 55B
active reasoning model for long-context agentic work.
Getting started
Get your API key
Create an API key at build.nvidia.com.
Export the key and run onboarding
export NVIDIA_API_KEY="nvapi-..."openclaw onboard --auth-choice nvidia-api-keySet an NVIDIA model
openclaw models set nvidia/nvidia/nemotron-3-ultra-550b-a55bFor non-interactive setup, pass the key directly:
openclaw onboard --auth-choice nvidia-api-key --nvidia-api-key "nvapi-..."Config example
{ env: { vars: { NVIDIA_API_KEY: "nvapi-..." } }, models: { providers: { nvidia: { baseUrl: "https://integrate.api.nvidia.com/v1", api: "openai-completions", }, }, }, agents: { defaults: { model: { primary: "nvidia/nvidia/nemotron-3-ultra-550b-a55b" }, }, },}Live model catalog
When an NVIDIA API key is configured, setup and model-selection paths check
https://integrate.api.nvidia.com/v1/models for available model IDs, cached for
30 seconds. NVIDIA's public
https://assets.ngc.nvidia.com/products/api-catalog/featured-models.json feed
provides ranking and token limits, cached for 24 hours. Featured models appear
first only while the inference inventory still lists them; other available
bundled chat models follow. A fresh inventory can restore a previously hidden
model that NVIDIA has republished.
The inventory also contains embeddings and other non-chat endpoints, without capability metadata. OpenClaw therefore offers only exact models with bundled chat metadata or valid featured-model metadata; it does not guess capabilities from model names. Unknown IDs can still be configured explicitly; listing alone does not prove chat compatibility. This is not a complete automatic catalog of every NVIDIA model.
Both public fetches use fixed HTTPS hosts and send no credentials. If the featured feed fails, available bundled chat models still appear. If the inventory is unavailable or malformed, browse and setup retain the bundled fallback, while the fresh-live catalog stays empty. A successful empty inventory does not restore stale bundled entries. Without NVIDIA auth, browsing uses the bundled catalog without fetching.
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
nvidia/nemotron-3.5-lightning-30b-a3b
is NVIDIA's smaller 30B total / 3B active reasoning model for agentic work. The
bundled row records its 1M context and a 16,384-token output budget matching
NVIDIA's hosted example. Select it with:
openclaw models set nvidia/nvidia/nemotron-3.5-lightning-30b-a3bLightning is selectable when the live inventory lists it even if it is absent from the featured feed. Nemotron 3 Ultra remains the default.
Nemotron 3 Ultra
Nemotron 3 Ultra is the default NVIDIA model in OpenClaw. NVIDIA's build page for
nvidia/nemotron-3-ultra-550b-a55b
lists it as an available free endpoint with a 1M-token context specification.
The bundled Ultra row sends
chat_template_kwargs: { enable_thinking: false, force_nonempty_content: true }
by default so normal chat output stays in the visible answer instead of
exposing reasoning text.
Use Ultra for the highest-capability NVIDIA default. Keep Super selected when you want the smaller Nemotron 3 option, or choose one of the third-party models hosted in NVIDIA's catalog when their context, latency, or behavior fits better.
Bundled fallback catalog
The bundled rows provide known chat metadata and an offline fallback. Deprecated compatibility rows keep existing exact model references recognizable but stay out of model pickers.
| Model ref | Name | Context | Max output |
|---|---|---|---|
nvidia/nvidia/nemotron-3-ultra-550b-a55b |
Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B | 1,048,576 | 8,192 |
nvidia/nvidia/nemotron-3.5-lightning-30b-a3b |
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B | 1,048,576 | 16,384 |
nvidia/nvidia/nemotron-3-super-120b-a12b |
Nemotron 3 Super 120B | 1,000,000 | 8,192 |
nvidia/z-ai/glm-5.2 |
GLM 5.2 | 202,752 | 8,192 |
nvidia/moonshotai/kimi-k2.6 |
Kimi K2.6 | 262,144 | 65,536 |
nvidia/minimaxai/minimax-m3 |
Minimax M3 | 196,608 | 8,192 |
nvidia/deepseek-ai/deepseek-v4-pro |
DeepSeek V4 Pro | 262,144 | 16,384 |
The full compatibility catalog also retains these shipped refs for existing
configurations and migration: nvidia/qwen/qwen3.5-397b-a17b,
nvidia/moonshotai/kimi-k2.5, nvidia/z-ai/glm-5.1, nvidia/z-ai/glm5, and
nvidia/minimaxai/minimax-m2.7. These references stay hidden from bundled and
offline model pickers unless NVIDIA republishes them in its inference inventory.
NVIDIA has retired the Qwen endpoint, so requests using its model reference no
longer work. Migrate existing Qwen configurations to an active model.
Advanced configuration
Auto-enable behavior
The provider auto-enables when the NVIDIA_API_KEY environment variable is
set or a key was stored during onboarding. No explicit provider config is
required beyond the key.
Catalog and pricing
OpenClaw uses NVIDIA's inference inventory for availability and its featured
feed for ranking. Exact bundled metadata preserves reasoning and image
capabilities omitted by the featured feed. Deprecated exact-reference
compatibility rows stay hidden from the offline fallback; fresh inventory
can restore models that NVIDIA has republished. Costs default to 0 in source
since NVIDIA currently offers free API access for the listed models.
OpenAI-compatible endpoint
OpenClaw talks to NVIDIA with the openai-completions adapter against the
standard /v1 chat completions route. Any OpenAI-compatible tooling should
work out of the box with the NVIDIA base URL.
Nemotron 3 Ultra reasoning params
NVIDIA's Ultra sample request uses chat_template_kwargs.enable_thinking
and reasoning_budget for reasoning output. OpenClaw's bundled Ultra row
disables template thinking by default for normal chat use. If you need to
opt into NVIDIA reasoning output or force other NVIDIA-specific request
fields, set per-model params and keep provider-specific overrides scoped to
the NVIDIA model:
{ agents: { defaults: { models: { "nvidia/nvidia/nemotron-3-ultra-550b-a55b": { params: { chat_template_kwargs: { enable_thinking: true }, extra_body: { reasoning_budget: 16384 }, }, }, }, }, },}params.chat_template_kwargs merges into any chat_template_kwargs
already on the request instead of replacing the whole object.
params.extra_body is the final OpenAI-compatible request-body override
and overwrites colliding payload keys, so use it only for fields NVIDIA
documents for the selected endpoint.
Slow custom provider responses
Some NVIDIA-hosted custom models can take longer than the default ~120s
model idle watchdog before they emit a first response chunk. For custom
NVIDIA provider entries, raise the provider timeout instead of the whole
agent runtime timeout; timeoutSeconds covers provider HTTP requests and
raises the idle/stream watchdog ceiling for that provider:
{ models: { providers: { "custom-integrate-api-nvidia-com": { baseUrl: "https://integrate.api.nvidia.com/v1", api: "openai-completions", apiKey: "NVIDIA_API_KEY", timeoutSeconds: 300, }, }, }, agents: { defaults: { models: { "custom-integrate-api-nvidia-com/meta/llama-3.1-70b-instruct": { params: { thinking: "off" }, }, }, }, },}