Vercel AI gateway

The Vercel AI Gateway provides a unified API to access hundreds of models through a single endpoint.

Property	Value
Provider	`vercel-ai-gateway`
Auth	`AI_GATEWAY_API_KEY`
API	Anthropic Messages compatible
Model catalog	Auto-discovered via `/v1/models`

Getting started

Set the API key
Run onboarding and choose the AI Gateway auth option:
Terminal window
```
openclaw onboard --auth-choice ai-gateway-api-key
```

Set a default model

Add the model to your OpenClaw config:

{
  agents: {
    defaults: {
      model: { primary: "vercel-ai-gateway/anthropic/claude-opus-4.6" },
    },
  },
}

Verify the model is available

openclaw models list --provider vercel-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 ai-gateway-api-key \
  --ai-gateway-api-key "$AI_GATEWAY_API_KEY"

Model ID shorthand

OpenClaw accepts Vercel Claude shorthand model refs and normalizes them at runtime:

Shorthand input	Normalized model ref
`vercel-ai-gateway/claude-opus-4.6`	`vercel-ai-gateway/anthropic/claude-opus-4.6`
`vercel-ai-gateway/opus-4.6`	`vercel-ai-gateway/anthropic/claude-opus-4-6`

Advanced configuration

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.

Provider routing

Vercel AI Gateway routes requests to the upstream provider based on the model ref prefix. For example, vercel-ai-gateway/anthropic/claude-opus-4.6 routes through Anthropic, while vercel-ai-gateway/openai/gpt-5.5 routes through OpenAI and vercel-ai-gateway/moonshotai/kimi-k2.6 routes through MoonshotAI. Your single AI_GATEWAY_API_KEY handles authentication for all upstream providers.

Thinking levels

/think options follow trusted upstream model prefixes when OpenClaw knows the upstream provider contract. vercel-ai-gateway/anthropic/... uses the Claude thinking profile, including adaptive defaults for Claude 4.6 models. vercel-ai-gateway/openai/gpt-5.4, gpt-5.5, and Codex-style refs expose /think xhigh just like the direct OpenAI/OpenAI Codex providers. Other namespaced refs keep the normal reasoning levels unless their catalog metadata declares more.

Model selection

Choosing providers, model refs, and failover behavior.

Troubleshooting

General troubleshooting and FAQ.