docs/tools/media-overview.md
OpenClaw generates images, videos, and music, understands inbound media (images, audio, video), and speaks replies aloud with text-to-speech. All media capabilities are tool-driven: the agent decides when to use them based on the conversation, and each tool only appears when at least one backing provider is configured.
Live speech uses the Talk session contract instead of the one-shot media tool
path. Talk has three modes: provider-native realtime, local or streaming
stt-tts, and transcription for observe-only speech capture. Those modes
share provider catalogs, event envelopes, and cancellation semantics with
telephony, meetings, browser realtime, and native push-to-talk clients.
| Provider | Image | Video | Music | TTS | STT | Realtime voice | Media understanding |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alibaba | ✓ | ||||||
| BytePlus | ✓ | ||||||
| ComfyUI | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ||||
| DeepInfra | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ||
| Deepgram | ✓ | ✓ | |||||
| ElevenLabs | ✓ | ✓ | |||||
| fal | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ||||
| ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ||
| Gradium | ✓ | ||||||
| Local CLI | ✓ | ||||||
| Microsoft | ✓ | ||||||
| MiniMax | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |||
| Mistral | ✓ | ||||||
| OpenAI | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |
| OpenRouter | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Qwen | ✓ | ||||||
| Runway | ✓ | ||||||
| SenseAudio | ✓ | ||||||
| Together | ✓ | ||||||
| Vydra | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ||||
| xAI | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ||
| Xiaomi MiMo | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Capability | Mode | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Image | Asynchronous | Provider processing can outlive a chat turn; generated attachments use the shared completion path. |
| Text-to-speech | Synchronous | Provider responses return in seconds; attached to the reply audio. |
| Video | Asynchronous | Provider processing takes 30 s to several minutes; slow queues can run up to the configured timeout. |
| Music | Asynchronous | Same provider-processing characteristic as video. |
For async tools, OpenClaw submits the request to the provider, returns a task
id immediately, and tracks the job in the task ledger. The agent continues
responding to other messages while the job runs. When the provider finishes,
OpenClaw wakes the agent with the generated media paths so it can tell the
user through the session's normal visible-reply mode: automatic final reply
delivery when configured, or message(action="send") when the session requires
the message tool. If the requester session is inactive or its active wake
fails, and some generated media is still missing from the completion reply,
OpenClaw sends an idempotent direct fallback with only the missing media. Media
already delivered by the completion reply is not posted again.
Deepgram, DeepInfra, ElevenLabs, Mistral, OpenAI, OpenRouter, SenseAudio, and xAI can all transcribe
inbound audio through the batch tools.media.audio path when configured.
Channel plugins that preflight a voice note for mention gating or command
parsing mark the transcribed attachment on the inbound context, so the shared
media-understanding pass reuses that transcript instead of making a second
STT call for the same audio.
Deepgram, ElevenLabs, Mistral, OpenAI, and xAI also register Voice Call streaming STT providers, so live phone audio can be forwarded to the selected vendor without waiting for a completed recording.
For live user conversations, prefer Talk mode. Batch audio attachments stay on the media path; browser realtime, native push-to-talk, telephony, and meeting audio should use Talk events and the session-scoped catalogs returned by the Gateway.