Skip to main content
The Vercel AI Gateway provides a unified API to access hundreds of models through a single endpoint.
PropertyValue
Providervercel-ai-gateway
Package@openclaw/vercel-ai-gateway-provider
AuthAI_GATEWAY_API_KEY
APIAnthropic Messages compatible
Base URLhttps://ai-gateway.vercel.sh
Model catalogAuto-discovered via /v1/models
OpenClaw auto-discovers the Gateway /v1/models catalog, so both the /models vercel-ai-gateway chat command and openclaw models list --provider vercel-ai-gateway include current model refs such as vercel-ai-gateway/openai/gpt-5.5 and vercel-ai-gateway/moonshotai/kimi-k2.6.

​
Getting started

1

Install the plugin

openclaw plugins install @openclaw/vercel-ai-gateway-provider
2

Set the API key

openclaw onboard --auth-choice ai-gateway-api-key
3

Set a default model

{
  agents: {
    defaults: {
      model: { primary: "vercel-ai-gateway/anthropic/claude-opus-4.6" },
    },
  },
}
4

Verify the model is available

openclaw models list --provider vercel-ai-gateway

​
Non-interactive example

openclaw onboard --non-interactive \
  --mode local \
  --auth-choice ai-gateway-api-key \
  --ai-gateway-api-key "$AI_GATEWAY_API_KEY"

​
Model ID shorthand

OpenClaw normalizes Claude shorthand model refs at runtime:
Shorthand inputNormalized model ref
vercel-ai-gateway/claude-opus-4.6vercel-ai-gateway/anthropic/claude-opus-4.6
vercel-ai-gateway/opus-4.6vercel-ai-gateway/anthropic/claude-opus-4-6
Use either form in your configuration; OpenClaw resolves the canonical anthropic/... ref automatically.

​
Advanced configuration

If the OpenClaw Gateway runs as a daemon (launchd/systemd), make sure AI_GATEWAY_API_KEY is available to that process.
A key exported only in an interactive shell will not be visible to a launchd/systemd daemon unless that environment is explicitly imported. Set the key in ~/.openclaw/.env or via env.shellEnv to ensure the gateway process can read it.
Vercel AI Gateway routes each request to the upstream provider named in the model ref prefix. For example, vercel-ai-gateway/anthropic/claude-opus-4.6 routes through Anthropic, vercel-ai-gateway/openai/gpt-5.5 routes through OpenAI, and vercel-ai-gateway/moonshotai/kimi-k2.6 routes through MoonshotAI. One AI_GATEWAY_API_KEY authenticates all upstream providers.
/think options follow the upstream model prefix when OpenClaw recognizes it. vercel-ai-gateway/anthropic/... uses the Claude thinking profile, including the adaptive default for Claude 4.6 models. Trusted vercel-ai-gateway/openai/... refs (gpt-5.2 and newer, plus Codex variants down to gpt-5.1-codex) expose /think xhigh. Other namespaced refs keep the standard reasoning levels unless their catalog metadata declares more.

Model selection

Choosing providers, model refs, and failover behavior.

Troubleshooting

General troubleshooting and FAQ.