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Z.AI is the API platform for GLM models. It provides REST APIs for GLM and uses API keys for authentication. Create your API key in the Z.AI console. OpenClaw uses the zai provider with a Z.AI API key.
PropertyValue
Providerzai
Package@openclaw/zai-provider
AuthZAI_API_KEY (legacy alias: Z_AI_API_KEY)
APIZ.AI Chat Completions (Bearer auth)

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GLM models

GLM is a model family, not a separate provider. In OpenClaw, GLM models use refs such as zai/glm-5.2: provider zai, model id glm-5.2.

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Getting started

Install the provider plugin first: 
openclaw plugins install @openclaw/zai-provider
Best for: most users. OpenClaw probes supported Z.AI endpoints with your API key and applies the correct base URL automatically.
1

Run onboarding

openclaw onboard --auth-choice zai-api-key
2

Verify the model is listed

openclaw models list --all --provider zai

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Endpoints

Onboarding choiceBase URLDefault model
zai-globalhttps://api.z.ai/api/paas/v4glm-5.1
zai-cnhttps://open.bigmodel.cn/api/paas/v4glm-5.1
zai-coding-globalhttps://api.z.ai/api/coding/paas/v4glm-5.2
zai-coding-cnhttps://open.bigmodel.cn/api/coding/paas/v4glm-5.2
zai-api-key auto-detects one of these four by probing your key against each endpoint’s chat-completions API, checking general endpoints (zai-global, then zai-cn) before Coding Plan endpoints (zai-coding-global, then zai-coding-cn), and stopping at the first endpoint that accepts a request. Use an explicit --auth-choice to force a Coding Plan endpoint if your key works on both.

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Config example

zai-api-key lets OpenClaw detect the matching Z.AI endpoint from the key and apply the correct base URL automatically. Use the explicit regional choices when you want to force a specific Coding Plan or general API surface.
{
  env: { ZAI_API_KEY: "sk-..." },
  models: {
    providers: {
      zai: {
        // GLM-5.2 uses the Coding Plan endpoint.
        baseUrl: "https://api.z.ai/api/coding/paas/v4",
      },
    },
  },
  agents: { defaults: { model: { primary: "zai/glm-5.2" } } },
}

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Built-in catalog

The zai provider plugin ships its catalog in the plugin manifest, so read-only listing can show known GLM rows without loading provider runtime: 
openclaw models list --all --provider zai
The manifest-backed catalog currently includes:
Model refNotes
zai/glm-5.2Coding Plan default; 1M context
zai/glm-5.1General API default
zai/glm-5
zai/glm-5-turbo
zai/glm-5v-turbo
zai/glm-4.7
zai/glm-4.7-flash
zai/glm-4.7-flashx
zai/glm-4.6
zai/glm-4.6v
zai/glm-4.5
zai/glm-4.5-air
zai/glm-4.5-flash
zai/glm-4.5v
GLM models are available as zai/<model> (example: zai/glm-5).
Coding Plan setup defaults to zai/glm-5.2; general API setup keeps zai/glm-5.1. On the Coding Plan endpoints, auto-detection falls back to glm-5.1 and then glm-4.7 when the key/plan does not expose GLM-5.2. GLM versions and availability can change; run openclaw models list --all --provider zai to see the catalog known to your installed version.

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Thinking levels

Full range: off, low, high, max (default off). OpenClaw maps low and high to Z.AI’s high reasoning effort, and max to Z.AI’s max effort, via reasoning_effort on the request payload.
Setting thinking to off avoids responses that spend the output budget on reasoning_content before visible text.

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Advanced configuration

Unknown glm-5* ids still forward-resolve on the provider path by synthesizing provider-owned metadata from the glm-4.7 template when the id matches the current GLM-5 family shape.
tool_stream is enabled by default for Z.AI tool-call streaming. To disable it:
{
  agents: {
    defaults: {
      models: {
        "zai/<model>": {
          params: { tool_stream: false },
        },
      },
    },
  },
}
Preserved thinking is opt-in because Z.AI requires the full historical reasoning_content to be replayed, which increases prompt tokens. Enable it per model:
{
  agents: {
    defaults: {
      models: {
        "zai/glm-5.2": {
          params: { preserveThinking: true },
        },
      },
    },
  },
}
When enabled and thinking is on, OpenClaw sends thinking: { type: "enabled", clear_thinking: false } and replays prior reasoning_content for the same OpenAI-compatible transcript. The snake_case preserve_thinking param key works as an alias.Advanced users can still override the exact provider payload with params.extra_body.thinking.
The Z.AI plugin registers image understanding.
PropertyValue
Modelglm-4.6v
Image understanding is auto-resolved from the configured Z.AI auth — no additional config is needed.
  • Z.AI uses Bearer auth with your API key.
  • The zai-api-key onboarding choice auto-detects the matching Z.AI endpoint by probing supported endpoints with your key.
  • Use the explicit regional choices (zai-coding-global, zai-coding-cn, zai-global, zai-cn) when you want to force a specific API surface.
  • The legacy env var Z_AI_API_KEY is still accepted; OpenClaw copies it to ZAI_API_KEY at startup if ZAI_API_KEY is unset.

Model selection

Choosing providers, model refs, and failover behavior.

Configuration reference

Full OpenClaw config schema, including provider and model settings.