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Vercel AI gateway

docs/providers/vercel-ai-gateway.md

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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
<Tip> 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`. </Tip>

Getting started

<Steps> <Step title="Install the plugin"> ```bash openclaw plugins install @openclaw/vercel-ai-gateway-provider ``` </Step> <Step title="Set the API key"> ```bash openclaw onboard --auth-choice ai-gateway-api-key ``` </Step> <Step title="Set a default model"> ```json5 { agents: { defaults: { model: { primary: "vercel-ai-gateway/anthropic/claude-opus-4.6" }, }, }, } ``` </Step> <Step title="Verify the model is available"> ```bash openclaw models list --provider vercel-ai-gateway ``` </Step> </Steps>

Non-interactive example

bash
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
<Tip> Use either form in your configuration; OpenClaw resolves the canonical `anthropic/...` ref automatically. </Tip>

Advanced configuration

<AccordionGroup> <Accordion title="Environment variable for daemon processes"> If the OpenClaw Gateway runs as a daemon (launchd/systemd), make sure `AI_GATEWAY_API_KEY` is available to that process. 
<Warning>
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.
</Warning>
</Accordion> <Accordion title="Provider routing"> 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. </Accordion> <Accordion title="Thinking levels"> `/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. </Accordion> </AccordionGroup> <CardGroup cols={2}> <Card title="Model selection" href="/concepts/model-providers" icon="layers"> Choosing providers, model refs, and failover behavior. </Card> <Card title="Troubleshooting" href="/help/troubleshooting" icon="wrench"> General troubleshooting and FAQ. </Card> </CardGroup>