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CLI automation

Use --non-interactive to automate openclaw onboard.

Baseline non-interactive example

Section titled “Baseline non-interactive example”
Terminal window
openclaw onboard --non-interactive \
  --mode local \
  --auth-choice apiKey \
  --anthropic-api-key "$ANTHROPIC_API_KEY" \
  --secret-input-mode plaintext \
  --gateway-port 18789 \
  --gateway-bind loopback \
  --install-daemon \
  --daemon-runtime node \
  --skip-bootstrap \
  --skip-skills

Add --json for a machine-readable summary.

Use --skip-bootstrap when your automation pre-seeds workspace files and does not want onboarding to create the default bootstrap files.

Use --secret-input-mode ref to store env-backed refs in auth profiles instead of plaintext values. Interactive selection between env refs and configured provider refs (file or exec) is available in the onboarding flow.

In non-interactive ref mode, provider env vars must be set in the process environment. Passing inline key flags without the matching env var now fails fast.

Example:

Terminal window
openclaw onboard --non-interactive \
  --mode local \
  --auth-choice openai-api-key \
  --secret-input-mode ref \
  --accept-risk

Provider-specific examples

Section titled “Provider-specific examples”
Anthropic API key example
Terminal window
openclaw onboard --non-interactive \
  --mode local \
  --auth-choice apiKey \
  --anthropic-api-key "$ANTHROPIC_API_KEY" \
  --gateway-port 18789 \
  --gateway-bind loopback
Gemini example
Terminal window
openclaw onboard --non-interactive \
  --mode local \
  --auth-choice gemini-api-key \
  --gemini-api-key "$GEMINI_API_KEY" \
  --gateway-port 18789 \
  --gateway-bind loopback
Z.AI example
Terminal window
openclaw onboard --non-interactive \
  --mode local \
  --auth-choice zai-api-key \
  --zai-api-key "$ZAI_API_KEY" \
  --gateway-port 18789 \
  --gateway-bind loopback
Vercel AI Gateway example
Terminal window
openclaw onboard --non-interactive \
  --mode local \
  --auth-choice ai-gateway-api-key \
  --ai-gateway-api-key "$AI_GATEWAY_API_KEY" \
  --gateway-port 18789 \
  --gateway-bind loopback
Cloudflare AI Gateway example
Terminal window
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 "$CLOUDFLARE_AI_GATEWAY_API_KEY" \
  --gateway-port 18789 \
  --gateway-bind loopback
Moonshot example
Terminal window
openclaw onboard --non-interactive \
  --mode local \
  --auth-choice moonshot-api-key \
  --moonshot-api-key "$MOONSHOT_API_KEY" \
  --gateway-port 18789 \
  --gateway-bind loopback
Mistral example
Terminal window
openclaw onboard --non-interactive \
  --mode local \
  --auth-choice mistral-api-key \
  --mistral-api-key "$MISTRAL_API_KEY" \
  --gateway-port 18789 \
  --gateway-bind loopback
Synthetic example
Terminal window
openclaw onboard --non-interactive \
  --mode local \
  --auth-choice synthetic-api-key \
  --synthetic-api-key "$SYNTHETIC_API_KEY" \
  --gateway-port 18789 \
  --gateway-bind loopback
OpenCode example
Terminal window
openclaw onboard --non-interactive \
  --mode local \
  --auth-choice opencode-zen \
  --opencode-zen-api-key "$OPENCODE_API_KEY" \
  --gateway-port 18789 \
  --gateway-bind loopback

Swap to --auth-choice opencode-go --opencode-go-api-key "$OPENCODE_API_KEY" for the Go catalog.

Ollama example
Terminal window
openclaw onboard --non-interactive \
  --mode local \
  --auth-choice ollama \
  --custom-model-id "qwen3.5:27b" \
  --accept-risk \
  --gateway-port 18789 \
  --gateway-bind loopback
Custom provider example
Terminal window
openclaw onboard --non-interactive \
  --mode local \
  --auth-choice custom-api-key \
  --custom-base-url "https://llm.example.com/v1" \
  --custom-model-id "foo-large" \
  --custom-api-key "$CUSTOM_API_KEY" \
  --custom-provider-id "my-custom" \
  --custom-compatibility anthropic \
  --custom-image-input \
  --gateway-port 18789 \
  --gateway-bind loopback

--custom-api-key is optional. If omitted, onboarding checks CUSTOM_API_KEY. OpenClaw marks common vision model IDs as image-capable automatically. Add --custom-image-input for unknown custom vision IDs, or --custom-text-input to force text-only metadata.

Ref-mode variant:

Terminal window
export CUSTOM_API_KEY="your-key"
openclaw onboard --non-interactive \
  --mode local \
  --auth-choice custom-api-key \
  --custom-base-url "https://llm.example.com/v1" \
  --custom-model-id "foo-large" \
  --secret-input-mode ref \
  --custom-provider-id "my-custom" \
  --custom-compatibility anthropic \
  --custom-image-input \
  --gateway-port 18789 \
  --gateway-bind loopback

In this mode, onboarding stores apiKey as { source: "env", provider: "default", id: "CUSTOM_API_KEY" }.

Anthropic setup-token remains available as a supported onboarding token path, but OpenClaw now prefers Claude CLI reuse when available. For production, prefer an Anthropic API key.

Add another agent

Section titled “Add another agent”

Use openclaw agents add <name> to create a separate agent with its own workspace, sessions, and auth profiles. Running without --workspace launches the wizard.

Terminal window
openclaw agents add work \
  --workspace ~/.openclaw/workspace-work \
  --model openai/gpt-5.5 \
  --bind whatsapp:biz \
  --non-interactive \
  --json

What it sets:

  • agents.list[].name
  • agents.list[].workspace
  • agents.list[].agentDir

Notes:

  • Default workspaces follow ~/.openclaw/workspace-<agentId>.
  • Add bindings to route inbound messages (the wizard can do this).
  • Non-interactive flags: --model, --agent-dir, --bind, --non-interactive.
Section titled “Related docs”