Cohere

Cohere provides OpenAI-compatible inference through its Compatibility API. OpenClaw provides Cohere as an official external plugin.

Property	Value
Provider id	`cohere`
Plugin	`@openclaw/cohere-provider`
Auth env var	`COHERE_API_KEY`
Onboarding flag	`--auth-choice cohere-api-key`
Direct CLI flag	`--cohere-api-key <key>`
API	OpenAI-compatible (`openai-completions`)
Base URL	`https://api.cohere.ai/compatibility/v1`
Default model	`cohere/command-a-plus-05-2026`
Context window	128,000 tokens

Built-in catalog

Model ref	Visibility	Input	Context	Max output	Notes
`cohere/command-a-plus-05-2026`	visible	text, image	128,000	64,000	Default; flagship agentic and reasoning model
`cohere/command-a-03-2025`	hidden	text	256,000	8,000	Previous generation; replaced by Command A+
`cohere/command-a-reasoning-08-2025`	hidden	text	256,000	32,000	Previous generation; replaced by Command A+
`cohere/command-a-vision-07-2025`	hidden	text, image	128,000	8,000	Previous generation; replaced by Command A+
`cohere/north-mini-code-1-0`	visible	text, image	256,000	64,000	Agentic coding; reasoning; free limits

Reasoning-capable Cohere models support two Compatibility API reasoning modes. OpenClaw maps off to none and every enabled thinking level to high. Command A Vision does not support tool use, so OpenClaw keeps agent tools disabled for that model.

Get started

Install the official plugin and restart the Gateway:

openclaw plugins install @openclaw/cohere-provider
openclaw gateway restart

Create a Cohere API key.
Run onboarding:

openclaw onboard --non-interactive \
  --auth-choice cohere-api-key \
  --cohere-api-key "$COHERE_API_KEY"

Confirm the catalog is available:

openclaw models list --provider cohere

Onboarding only sets Cohere as the primary model when no primary model is already configured.

Environment-only setup

Make COHERE_API_KEY available to the Gateway process, then select the Cohere model:

{
  agents: {
    defaults: {
      model: { primary: "cohere/command-a-plus-05-2026" },
    },
  },
}

If the Gateway runs as a daemon or in Docker, set COHERE_API_KEY for that service. Exporting it only in an interactive shell does not make it available to an already-running Gateway.

Overview

Concepts and configuration

Providers

Built-in catalog

Get started

Environment-only setup

​Built-in catalog

​Get started

​Environment-only setup

​Related

Built-in catalog

Get started

Environment-only setup

Related