Cloudflare AI gateway

Cloudflare AI Gateway sits in front of provider APIs and lets you add analytics, caching, and controls. For Anthropic, OpenClaw uses the Anthropic Messages API through your Gateway endpoint.

Property	Value
Provider	`cloudflare-ai-gateway`
Base URL	`https://gateway.ai.cloudflare.com/v1/<account_id>/<gateway_id>/anthropic`
Default model	`cloudflare-ai-gateway/claude-sonnet-4-6`
API key	`CLOUDFLARE_AI_GATEWAY_API_KEY` (your provider API key for requests through the Gateway)

When thinking is enabled for Anthropic Messages models, OpenClaw strips trailing assistant prefill turns before sending the payload through Cloudflare AI Gateway. Anthropic rejects response prefilling with extended thinking, while ordinary non-thinking prefill remains available.

Getting started

Set the provider API key and Gateway details
Run onboarding and choose the Cloudflare AI Gateway auth option:
Terminal window
```
openclaw onboard --auth-choice cloudflare-ai-gateway-api-key
```
This prompts for your account ID, gateway ID, and API key.

Set a default model

Add the model to your OpenClaw config:

{
  agents: {
    defaults: {
      model: { primary: "cloudflare-ai-gateway/claude-sonnet-4-6" },
    },
  },
}

Verify the model is available

openclaw models list --provider cloudflare-ai-gateway

Non-interactive example

For scripted or CI setups, pass all values on the command line:

openclaw onboard --non-interactive \
  --mode local \
  --auth-choice cloudflare-ai-gateway-api-key \
  --cloudflare-ai-gateway-account-id "your-account-id" \
  --cloudflare-ai-gateway-gateway-id "your-gateway-id" \
  --cloudflare-ai-gateway-api-key "$CLOUDFLARE_AI_GATEWAY_API_KEY"

Advanced configuration

Authenticated gateways

If you enabled Gateway authentication in Cloudflare, add the cf-aig-authorization header. This is in addition to your provider API key.

{
  models: {
    providers: {
      "cloudflare-ai-gateway": {
        headers: {
          "cf-aig-authorization": "Bearer

”, }, }, }, }, } ```

Environment note

If the Gateway runs as a daemon (launchd/systemd), make sure CLOUDFLARE_AI_GATEWAY_API_KEY is available to that process.

Model selection

Choosing providers, model refs, and failover behavior.

Troubleshooting

General troubleshooting and FAQ.