openclaw-openclaw/docs/concepts/models.md

summary, read_when, title, sidebarTitle

summary	read_when	title	sidebarTitle
How OpenClaw resolves provider/model refs, config keys, and the `/model` chat command	Changing model fallback behavior or selection UX Debugging "model is not allowed" or a stale default provider fallback Working on models.json merge/secret behavior	Models CLI	Models CLI

Auth profile rotation, cooldowns, and how that interacts with fallbacks. Quick provider overview and examples. Full `openclaw models` command and flag reference. Model config keys, defaults, and examples.

A model ref (provider/model) chooses a provider and model. It does not usually choose the low-level agent runtime. OpenAI is the main exception: openai/gpt-5.5 runs through the Codex app-server runtime by default on the official OpenAI provider. Subscription Copilot refs (github-copilot/*) can be opted into the external GitHub Copilot agent runtime plugin, but that path is always explicit (never selected by auto). Runtime overrides belong on provider/model policy, not on the whole agent or session. In Codex runtime mode, openai/gpt-* does not imply API-key billing; auth can come from a Codex account or an openai OAuth profile. See Agent runtimes and GitHub Copilot agent runtime.

Selection order

`agents.defaults.model.primary` (or `agents.defaults.model` as a plain string). `agents.defaults.model.fallbacks`, tried in order. Auth-profile rotation happens inside a provider before OpenClaw moves to the next fallback model.

Related model-config surfaces:

• agents.defaults.models is the allowlist/catalog of models OpenClaw can use, plus aliases. Use provider/* entries to allow every discovered model from a provider without listing each one.
• agents.defaults.utilityModel is an optional lower-cost model for short internal tasks such as generated dashboard session titles and supported channel thread/topic titles. Per-agent agents.list[].utilityModel overrides it. When unset, these tasks use the agent's primary model. Utility tasks are separate model calls and may send bounded task content to the selected model provider.
• agents.defaults.imageModel is used only when the primary model cannot accept images.
• agents.defaults.pdfModel is used by the pdf tool. If unset, the tool falls back to imageModel, then the resolved session/default model.
• agents.defaults.imageGenerationModel, musicGenerationModel, and videoGenerationModel back the shared media-generation tools. If unset, each tool infers an auth-backed provider default: current default provider first, then the remaining registered providers for that capability in provider-id order. Set agents.defaults.mediaGenerationAutoProviderFallback: false to disable that cross-provider inference while keeping explicit fallbacks.
• Per-agent agents.list[].model (plus bindings) overrides agents.defaults.model — see Multi-agent routing.

Full key reference, defaults, and JSON5 examples: Configuration reference.

Selection source and fallback strictness

The same provider/model behaves differently depending on where it came from:

Source	Behavior
Configured default (agents.defaults.model.primary, per-agent primary)	Normal starting point; uses agents.defaults.model.fallbacks.
Auto fallback	Temporary recovery state, stored as modelOverrideSource: "auto". OpenClaw periodically reprobes the original primary, clears the auto selection on recovery, and announces fallback/recovery transitions once per state change.
User session selection	Exact and strict. /model, the model picker, session_status(model=...), and sessions.patch store modelOverrideSource: "user". If that provider/model becomes unreachable, the run fails visibly instead of falling through to another configured model.
Cron --model / payload model	Per-job primary. Still uses configured fallbacks unless the job supplies its own payload fallbacks (fallbacks: [] forces a strict run).

Other selection rules:

• Changing agents.defaults.model.primary does not rewrite existing session pins. If status reports This session is pinned to X; config primary Y will apply to new/unpinned sessions., run /model default to clear the pin.
• CLI default-model and allowlist pickers respect models.mode: "replace" by listing only models.providers.*.models instead of the full built-in catalog.
• The Control UI model picker asks the Gateway for its configured model view: agents.defaults.models when set (including provider/* wildcard entries), otherwise models.providers.*.models plus providers with usable auth. The full built-in catalog is reserved for explicit browse views (models.list with view: "all", or openclaw models list --all).

Full mechanics: Model failover.

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.

Onboarding

openclaw onboard

Sets up model and auth for common providers without hand-editing config, including OpenAI Codex subscription OAuth and Anthropic (API key or Claude CLI reuse).

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

If agents.defaults.models is set, it becomes the allowlist for /model and session overrides. Selecting a model outside that allowlist returns, before any normal reply is generated:

Model "provider/model" is not allowed. Use /models to list providers, or /models <provider> to list models.
Add it with: openclaw config set agents.defaults.models '{"provider/model":{}}' --strict-json --merge

Fix it by adding the model to agents.defaults.models, clearing the allowlist entirely (remove the key), or picking a model from /model list. If the rejected command included a runtime override such as /model openai/gpt-5.5 --runtime codex, fix the allowlist first, then retry the same /model ... --runtime ... command.

For local/GGUF models, the allowlist needs the full provider-prefixed ref, for example ollama/gemma4:26b or lmstudio/Gemma4-26b-a4-it-gguf — check openclaw models list --provider <provider> for the exact string. Bare filenames or display names are not enough once the allowlist is active.

To limit providers without listing every model, use provider/* wildcard entries:

{
  agents: {
    defaults: {
      models: {
        "openai/*": {},
        "vllm/*": {},
      },
    },
  },
}

/model, /models, and model pickers then show the discovered catalog for those providers only, and new models can appear without editing the allowlist. Mix exact provider/model entries with provider/* entries to pull in one specific model from another provider.

Example allowlist with aliases:

{
  agents: {
    defaults: {
      model: { primary: "anthropic/claude-sonnet-4-6" },
      models: {
        "anthropic/claude-sonnet-4-6": { alias: "Sonnet" },
        "anthropic/claude-opus-4-6": { alias: "Opus" },
      },
    },
  },
}

Use `--merge` for additive changes:

openclaw config set agents.defaults.models '{"openai/gpt-5.4":{}}' --strict-json --merge

openclaw config set refuses plain-object assignments to agents.defaults.models, models.providers, or models.providers.<id>.models when they would drop existing entries; use --replace only when the new value should become the complete target value. Interactive provider setup and openclaw configure --section model already merge provider-scoped selections into the allowlist, so adding a provider does not drop unrelated entries; configure preserves an existing agents.defaults.model.primary. Explicit commands like openclaw models auth login --provider <id> --set-default and openclaw models set <model> still replace the primary.

/model in chat

/model
/model list
/model 3
/model openai/gpt-5.4
/model default
/model status

• /model and /model list show a compact numbered picker (model family + available providers); /model <#> selects from it. On Discord this opens provider/model dropdowns with a Submit step; on Telegram, picker selections are session-scoped and never rewrite the agent's persistent default in openclaw.json. /models add is deprecated and returns a message instead of registering models from chat.
• /model persists the new session selection immediately. If the agent is idle, the next run uses it right away; if a run is already active, the switch is queued for the next clean retry point (or a later one, if tool activity or reply output already started).
• /model default clears the session selection so it inherits the configured primary again.
• A user-selected /model ref is strict for that session: if it becomes unreachable, the reply fails visibly instead of silently falling back through agents.defaults.model.fallbacks. Configured defaults and cron job primaries still use fallback chains.
• /model status is the detailed view: auth candidates per provider, and (when configured) the provider endpoint baseUrl plus api mode.
• Model refs are parsed by splitting on the first /; type provider/model. If the model ID itself contains / (OpenRouter-style), include the provider prefix, e.g. /model openrouter/moonshotai/kimi-k2. If you omit the provider, OpenClaw tries: (1) alias match, (2) unique configured-provider match for that exact unprefixed model id, (3) the configured default provider (deprecated fallback) — and if that provider no longer exposes the configured default model, the first configured provider/model instead, to avoid surfacing a stale removed-provider default.
• Model refs are normalized to lowercase; provider IDs are otherwise exact, so use the ID advertised by the plugin.

Full command behavior and config: Slash commands.

CLI

openclaw models status
openclaw models list
openclaw models set <provider/model>
openclaw models set-image <provider/model>
openclaw models scan
openclaw models aliases list|add|remove
openclaw models fallbacks list|add|remove|clear
openclaw models image-fallbacks list|add|remove|clear
openclaw models auth list|add|login|paste-api-key|paste-token|setup-token|order

openclaw models with no subcommand is a shortcut for models status, which also surfaces OAuth expiry for auth-store profiles (warns within 24h by default). Full flags, JSON shapes, and auth-profile subcommands: Models CLI reference.

`openclaw models scan` inspects OpenRouter's public free-model catalog and can probe candidates for tool and image support live. The catalog itself is public, so metadata-only scans (`--no-probe`) need no key; live probing and `--set-default`/`--set-image` require an OpenRouter API key (auth profile or `OPENROUTER_API_KEY`) and fail closed to metadata-only output without one.

Results rank by: image support, then tool latency, then context size, then parameter count. In a TTY, probed results prompt an interactive fallback selection; non-interactive mode needs `--yes` to accept defaults.

Models registry (models.json)

Custom providers configured under models.providers are written into models.json under the agent directory (default ~/.openclaw/agents/<agentId>/agent/models.json). Provider-plugin catalogs are stored separately as generated plugin-owned catalog shards and load automatically. This file is merged with config by default; set models.mode: "replace" to use only your configured providers.

For matching provider IDs:

- A non-empty `baseUrl` already present in the agent `models.json` wins.
- A non-empty `apiKey` in `models.json` wins only when that provider is not SecretRef-managed in the current config/auth-profile context.
- SecretRef-managed `apiKey` values refresh from source markers instead of persisting resolved secrets: the env variable name for env refs, `secretref-managed` for file/exec refs.
- SecretRef-managed header values refresh the same way, using `secretref-env:ENV_VAR_NAME` for env refs.
- Empty or missing `apiKey`/`baseUrl` in `models.json` fall back to config `models.providers`.
- Other provider fields refresh 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, whenever it regenerates models.json — including command-driven paths like openclaw agent.

Related

• Agent runtimes — OpenClaw, Codex, and other agent loop runtimes
• Configuration reference — model config keys
• Image generation — image model configuration
• Model failover — fallback chains
• Model providers — provider routing and auth
• Models CLI reference — full command and flag reference
• Music generation — music model configuration
• Video generation — video model configuration