Google (Gemini)

The Google plugin provides access to Gemini models through Google AI Studio, plus image generation, media understanding (image/audio/video), text-to-speech, and web search via Gemini Grounding.

• Provider: google
• Auth: GEMINI_API_KEY or GOOGLE_API_KEY
• API: Google Gemini API
• Runtime option: provider/model agentRuntime.id: "google-gemini-cli" reuses Gemini CLI OAuth while keeping model refs canonical as google/*.

Getting started

Choose your preferred auth method and follow the setup steps.

API keyGemini CLI (OAuth)

Best for: standard Gemini API access through Google AI Studio.

1. Run onboarding

   openclaw onboard --auth-choice gemini-api-key

   Or pass the key directly:

   openclaw onboard --non-interactive \
     --mode local \
     --auth-choice gemini-api-key \
     --gemini-api-key "$GEMINI_API_KEY"

2. Set a default model

   {
     agents: {
       defaults: {
         model: { primary: "google/gemini-3.1-pro-preview" },
       },
     },
   }

3. Verify the model is available

   openclaw models list --provider google

Tip

The environment variables GEMINI_API_KEY and GOOGLE_API_KEY are both accepted. Use whichever you already have configured.

Best for: reusing an existing Gemini CLI login via PKCE OAuth instead of a separate API key.

Warning

The google-gemini-cli provider is an unofficial integration. Some users report account restrictions when using OAuth this way. Use at your own risk.

1. Install the Gemini CLI

   The local gemini command must be available on PATH.

   # Homebrew
   brew install gemini-cli
   
   # or npm
   npm install -g @google/gemini-cli

   OpenClaw supports both Homebrew installs and global npm installs, including common Windows/npm layouts.

2. Log in via OAuth

   openclaw models auth login --provider google-gemini-cli --set-default

3. Verify the model is available

   openclaw models list --provider google

• Default model: google/gemini-3.1-pro-preview
• Runtime: google-gemini-cli
• Alias: gemini-cli

Gemini 3.1 Pro’s Gemini API model id is gemini-3.1-pro-preview. OpenClaw accepts the shorter google/gemini-3.1-pro as a convenience alias and normalizes it before provider calls.

Environment variables:

• OPENCLAW_GEMINI_OAUTH_CLIENT_ID
• OPENCLAW_GEMINI_OAUTH_CLIENT_SECRET

(Or the GEMINI_CLI_* variants.)

Note

If Gemini CLI OAuth requests fail after login, set GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT or GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT_ID on the gateway host and retry.

Note

If login fails before the browser flow starts, make sure the local gemini command is installed and on PATH.

google-gemini-cli/* model refs are legacy compatibility aliases. New configs should use google/* model refs plus the google-gemini-cli runtime when they want local Gemini CLI execution.

Capabilities

Capability	Supported
Chat completions	Yes
Image generation	Yes
Music generation	Yes
Text-to-speech	Yes
Realtime voice	Yes (Google Live API)
Image understanding	Yes
Audio transcription	Yes
Video understanding	Yes
Web search (Grounding)	Yes
Thinking/reasoning	Yes (Gemini 2.5+ / Gemini 3+)
Gemma 4 models	Yes

Web search

The bundled gemini web-search provider uses Gemini Google Search grounding. Configure a dedicated search key under plugins.entries.google.config.webSearch, or let it reuse models.providers.google.apiKey after GEMINI_API_KEY:

{
  plugins: {
    entries: {
      google: {
        config: {
          webSearch: {
            apiKey: "AIza...", // optional if GEMINI_API_KEY or models.providers.google.apiKey is set
            baseUrl: "https://generativelanguage.googleapis.com/v1beta", // falls back to models.providers.google.baseUrl
            model: "gemini-2.5-flash",
          },
        },
      },
    },
  },
}

Credential precedence is dedicated webSearch.apiKey, then GEMINI_API_KEY, then models.providers.google.apiKey. webSearch.baseUrl is optional and exists for operator proxies or compatible Gemini API endpoints; when omitted, Gemini web search reuses models.providers.google.baseUrl. See Gemini search for the provider-specific tool behavior.

Tip

Gemini 3 models use thinkingLevel rather than thinkingBudget. OpenClaw maps Gemini 3, Gemini 3.1, and gemini-*-latest alias reasoning controls to thinkingLevel so default/low-latency runs do not send disabled thinkingBudget values.

/think adaptive keeps Google’s dynamic thinking semantics instead of choosing a fixed OpenClaw level. Gemini 3 and Gemini 3.1 omit a fixed thinkingLevel so Google can choose the level; Gemini 2.5 sends Google’s dynamic sentinel thinkingBudget: -1.

Gemma 4 models (for example gemma-4-26b-a4b-it) support thinking mode. OpenClaw rewrites thinkingBudget to a supported Google thinkingLevel for Gemma 4. Setting thinking to off preserves thinking disabled instead of mapping to MINIMAL.

Image generation

The bundled google image-generation provider defaults to google/gemini-3.1-flash-image-preview.

• Also supports google/gemini-3-pro-image-preview
• Generate: up to 4 images per request
• Edit mode: enabled, up to 5 input images
• Geometry controls: size, aspectRatio, and resolution

To use Google as the default image provider:

{
  agents: {
    defaults: {
      imageGenerationModel: {
        primary: "google/gemini-3.1-flash-image-preview",
      },
    },
  },
}

Note

See Image Generation for shared tool parameters, provider selection, and failover behavior.

Video generation

The bundled google plugin also registers video generation through the shared video_generate tool.

• Default video model: google/veo-3.1-fast-generate-preview
• Modes: text-to-video, image-to-video, and single-video reference flows
• Supports aspectRatio (16:9, 9:16) and resolution (720P, 1080P); audio output is not supported by Veo today
• Supported durations: 4, 6, or 8 seconds (other values snap to the nearest allowed value)

To use Google as the default video provider:

{
  agents: {
    defaults: {
      videoGenerationModel: {
        primary: "google/veo-3.1-fast-generate-preview",
      },
    },
  },
}

Note

See Video Generation for shared tool parameters, provider selection, and failover behavior.

Music generation

The bundled google plugin also registers music generation through the shared music_generate tool.

• Default music model: google/lyria-3-clip-preview
• Also supports google/lyria-3-pro-preview
• Prompt controls: lyrics and instrumental
• Output format: mp3 by default, plus wav on google/lyria-3-pro-preview
• Reference inputs: up to 10 images
• Session-backed runs detach through the shared task/status flow, including action: "status"

To use Google as the default music provider:

{
  agents: {
    defaults: {
      musicGenerationModel: {
        primary: "google/lyria-3-clip-preview",
      },
    },
  },
}

Note

See Music Generation for shared tool parameters, provider selection, and failover behavior.

Text-to-speech

The bundled google speech provider uses the Gemini API TTS path with gemini-3.1-flash-tts-preview.

• Default voice: Kore
• Auth: messages.tts.providers.google.apiKey, models.providers.google.apiKey, GEMINI_API_KEY, or GOOGLE_API_KEY
• Output: WAV for regular TTS attachments, Opus for voice-note targets, PCM for Talk/telephony
• Voice-note output: Google PCM is wrapped as WAV and transcoded to 48 kHz Opus with ffmpeg

Google’s batch Gemini TTS path returns generated audio in the completed generateContent response. For lowest-latency spoken conversations, use the Google realtime voice provider backed by the Gemini Live API instead of batch TTS.

To use Google as the default TTS provider:

{
  messages: {
    tts: {
      auto: "always",
      provider: "google",
      providers: {
        google: {
          model: "gemini-3.1-flash-tts-preview",
          voiceName: "Kore",
          audioProfile: "Speak professionally with a calm tone.",
        },
      },
    },
  },
}

Gemini API TTS uses natural-language prompting for style control. Set audioProfile to prepend a reusable style prompt before the spoken text. Set speakerName when your prompt text refers to a named speaker.

Gemini API TTS also accepts expressive square-bracket audio tags in the text, such as [whispers] or [laughs]. To keep tags out of the visible chat reply while sending them to TTS, put them inside a [[tts:text]]...[[/tts:text]] block:

Here is the clean reply text.

[[tts:text]][whispers] Here is the spoken version.[[/tts:text]]

Note

A Google Cloud Console API key restricted to the Gemini API is valid for this provider. This is not the separate Cloud Text-to-Speech API path.

Realtime voice

The bundled google plugin registers a realtime voice provider backed by the Gemini Live API for backend audio bridges such as Voice Call and Google Meet.

Setting	Config path	Default
Model	plugins.entries.voice-call.config.realtime.providers.google.model	gemini-2.5-flash-native-audio-preview-12-2025
Voice	...google.voice	Kore
Temperature	...google.temperature	(unset)
VAD start sensitivity	...google.startSensitivity	(unset)
VAD end sensitivity	...google.endSensitivity	(unset)
Silence duration	...google.silenceDurationMs	(unset)
Activity handling	...google.activityHandling	Google default, start-of-activity-interrupts
Turn coverage	...google.turnCoverage	Google default, only-activity
Disable auto VAD	...google.automaticActivityDetectionDisabled	false
Session resumption	...google.sessionResumption	true
Context compression	...google.contextWindowCompression	true
API key	...google.apiKey	Falls back to models.providers.google.apiKey, GEMINI_API_KEY, or GOOGLE_API_KEY

Example Voice Call realtime config:

{
  plugins: {
    entries: {
      "voice-call": {
        enabled: true,
        config: {
          realtime: {
            enabled: true,
            provider: "google",
            providers: {
              google: {
                model: "gemini-2.5-flash-native-audio-preview-12-2025",
                voice: "Kore",
                activityHandling: "start-of-activity-interrupts",
                turnCoverage: "only-activity",
              },
            },
          },
        },
      },
    },
  },
}

Note

Google Live API uses bidirectional audio and function calling over a WebSocket. OpenClaw adapts telephony/Meet bridge audio to Gemini’s PCM Live API stream and keeps tool calls on the shared realtime voice contract. Leave temperature unset unless you need sampling changes; OpenClaw omits non-positive values because Google Live can return transcripts without audio for temperature: 0. Gemini API transcription is enabled without languageCodes; the current Google SDK rejects language-code hints on this API path.

Note

Control UI Talk supports Google Live browser sessions with constrained one-use tokens. Backend-only realtime voice providers can also run through the generic Gateway relay transport, which keeps provider credentials on the Gateway.

For maintainer live verification, run OPENAI_API_KEY=... GEMINI_API_KEY=... node --import tsx scripts/dev/realtime-talk-live-smoke.ts. The smoke also covers OpenAI backend/WebRTC paths; the Google leg mints the same constrained Live API token shape used by Control UI Talk, opens the browser WebSocket endpoint, sends the initial setup payload, and waits for setupComplete.

Advanced configuration

Direct Gemini cache reuse

For direct Gemini API runs (api: "google-generative-ai"), OpenClaw passes a configured cachedContent handle through to Gemini requests.

• Configure per-model or global params with either cachedContent or legacy cached_content
• If both are present, cachedContent wins
• Example value: cachedContents/prebuilt-context
• Gemini cache-hit usage is normalized into OpenClaw cacheRead from upstream cachedContentTokenCount

{
  agents: {
    defaults: {
      models: {
        "google/gemini-2.5-pro": {
          params: {
            cachedContent: "cachedContents/prebuilt-context",
          },
        },
      },
    },
  },
}

Gemini CLI JSON usage notes

When using the google-gemini-cli OAuth provider, OpenClaw normalizes the CLI JSON output as follows:

• Reply text comes from the CLI JSON response field.
• Usage falls back to stats when the CLI leaves usage empty.
• stats.cached is normalized into OpenClaw cacheRead.
• If stats.input is missing, OpenClaw derives input tokens from stats.input_tokens - stats.cached.

Environment and daemon setup

If the Gateway runs as a daemon (launchd/systemd), make sure GEMINI_API_KEY is available to that process (for example, in ~/.openclaw/.env or via env.shellEnv).

Related

Model selection

Choosing providers, model refs, and failover behavior.

Image generation

Shared image tool parameters and provider selection.

Video generation

Shared video tool parameters and provider selection.

Music generation

Shared music tool parameters and provider selection.