Moonshot AI: Configure Kimi Models vs Kimi Coding Providers

Moonshot offers the Kimi API through endpoints that are compatible with OpenAI. Select moonshot/kimi-k3 for Kimi K3, keep the onboarding default moonshot/kimi-k2.6, or use kimi/kimi-for-coding for Kimi Coding.

Warning

Moonshot and Kimi Coding are separate providers, each delivered as its own external plugin. Keys are not interchangeable, endpoints are different, and model references differ (moonshot/... vs kimi/...).

Built-in model catalog

Catalog cost estimates rely on Moonshot's published pay-as-you-go rates. Check the live vendor pages for Kimi K3, Kimi K2.7 Code, Kimi K2.6, and Kimi K2.5 before making cost decisions.

Kimi K3 always reasons at reasoning_effort: "max". OpenClaw exposes only /think max, omits the K2-only thinking field, and removes sampling overrides (temperature, top_p, n, presence_penalty, and frequency_penalty) that K3 fixes to provider defaults. Kimi K2.7 Code also always uses native thinking but requires both thinking and reasoning_effort to be omitted; the HighSpeed variant uses the same contract. Kimi K2.6 remains the onboarding default. See Moonshot's Kimi K3 quickstart.

Getting started

Both Moonshot and Kimi Coding are external plugins. Install one before onboarding.

Moonshot API

Best for: Kimi K3 and K2 models through the Moonshot Open Platform.

Install the plugin

openclaw plugins install @openclaw/moonshot-provider
openclaw gateway restart

Choose your endpoint region

Run onboarding

openclaw onboard --auth-choice moonshot-api-key

Or for the China endpoint:

openclaw onboard --auth-choice moonshot-api-key-cn

Set Kimi K3 as the default model

Onboarding keeps Kimi K2.6 as the initial default. Switch explicitly when you want Kimi K3:

openclaw models set moonshot/kimi-k3

Verify models are available

openclaw models list --provider moonshot

Run a live smoke test

Use an isolated state dir when you want to verify model access and cost tracking without touching your normal sessions:

OPENCLAW_CONFIG_PATH=/tmp/openclaw-kimi/openclaw.json \
OPENCLAW_STATE_DIR=/tmp/openclaw-kimi \
openclaw agent --local \
  --session-id live-kimi-cost \
  --message 'Reply exactly: KIMI_LIVE_OK' \
  --thinking max \
  --json

The JSON response should report provider: "moonshot" and model: "kimi-k3". The assistant transcript entry stores normalized token usage plus estimated cost under usage.cost when Moonshot returns usage metadata.

Config example

{
  env: { MOONSHOT_API_KEY: "sk-..." },
  agents: {
    defaults: {
      model: { primary: "moonshot/kimi-k2.6" },
      models: {
        // moonshot-kimi-k2-aliases:start
        "moonshot/kimi-k2.6": { alias: "Kimi K2.6" },
        "moonshot/kimi-k3": { alias: "Kimi K3" },
        "moonshot/kimi-k2.7-code": { alias: "Kimi K2.7 Code" },
        "moonshot/kimi-k2.7-code-highspeed": { alias: "Kimi K2.7 Code HighSpeed" },
        "moonshot/kimi-k2.5": { alias: "Kimi K2.5" },
        // moonshot-kimi-k2-aliases:end
      },
    },
  },
  models: {
    mode: "merge",
    providers: {
      moonshot: {
        baseUrl: "https://api.moonshot.ai/v1",
        apiKey: "${MOONSHOT_API_KEY}",
        api: "openai-completions",
        models: [
          // moonshot-kimi-k2-models:start
          {
            id: "kimi-k2.6",
            name: "Kimi K2.6",
            reasoning: false,
            input: ["text", "image"],
            cost: { input: 0.95, output: 4, cacheRead: 0.16, cacheWrite: 0 },
            contextWindow: 262144,
            maxTokens: 262144,
          },
          {
            id: "kimi-k3",
            name: "Kimi K3",
            reasoning: true,
            thinkingLevelMap: {
              off: null,
              minimal: null,
              low: null,
              medium: null,
              high: null,
              xhigh: "max",
              max: "max",
            },
            input: ["text", "image"],
            cost: { input: 3, output: 15, cacheRead: 0.3, cacheWrite: 0 },
            contextWindow: 1048576,
            maxTokens: 1048576,
          },
          {
            id: "kimi-k2.7-code",
            name: "Kimi K2.7 Code",
            reasoning: true,
            input: ["text", "image"],
            cost: { input: 0.95, output: 4, cacheRead: 0.19, cacheWrite: 0 },
            contextWindow: 262144,
            maxTokens: 262144,
          },
          {
            id: "kimi-k2.7-code-highspeed",
            name: "Kimi K2.7 Code HighSpeed",
            reasoning: true,
            input: ["text", "image"],
            cost: { input: 1.9, output: 8, cacheRead: 0.38, cacheWrite: 0 },
            contextWindow: 262144,
            maxTokens: 262144,
          },
          {
            id: "kimi-k2.5",
            name: "Kimi K2.5",
            reasoning: false,
            input: ["text", "image"],
            cost: { input: 0.6, output: 3, cacheRead: 0.1, cacheWrite: 0 },
            contextWindow: 262144,
            maxTokens: 262144,
          },
          // moonshot-kimi-k2-models:end
        ],
      },
    },
  },
}

Kimi Coding

Best for: code-focused tasks via the Kimi Coding endpoint.

Note

Kimi Coding uses a different API key and provider prefix (kimi/...) than Moonshot (moonshot/...). Current refs are kimi/k3 for a 256K context, kimi/k3[1m] for the 1M tier, kimi/kimi-for-coding, and kimi/kimi-for-coding-highspeed. Legacy refs kimi/kimi-code and kimi/k2p5 remain accepted and normalize to kimi/kimi-for-coding.

The coding service accepts both OpenAI-compatible https://api.kimi.com/coding/v1 and Anthropic-compatible https://api.kimi.com/coding/ clients. This plugin uses Anthropic Messages. Create membership keys in the Kimi Code Console; current membership pricing lives on Kimi's pricing page.

Install the plugin

openclaw plugins install @openclaw/kimi-provider
openclaw gateway restart

Run onboarding

openclaw onboard --auth-choice kimi-code-api-key

Set a default model

{
  agents: {
    defaults: {
      model: { primary: "kimi/kimi-for-coding" },
    },
  },
}

Verify the model is available

openclaw models list --provider kimi

Kimi Code K3 defaults to deep thinking at max. /think off sends thinking.type: "disabled"; /think max sends K3's adaptive-thinking request with max effort. Stale lower thinking levels resolve to the supported max level. The 1M model requires an Allegretto or higher Kimi membership; use kimi/k3 on Moderato.

See the official Kimi Code model table for current plan availability.

Config example

{
  env: { KIMI_API_KEY: "sk-..." },
  agents: {
    defaults: {
      model: { primary: "kimi/kimi-for-coding" },
      models: {
        "kimi/kimi-for-coding": { alias: "Kimi" },
      },
    },
  },
}

Kimi web search

The Moonshot plugin also registers Kimi as a web_search provider, backed by Moonshot web search.

Run interactive web search setup

openclaw configure --section web

Choose Kimi in the web-search section to store plugins.entries.moonshot.config.webSearch.*.

Configure the web search region and model

Interactive setup prompts for:

Config lives under plugins.entries.moonshot.config.webSearch:

{
  plugins: {
    entries: {
      moonshot: {
        config: {
          webSearch: {
            apiKey: "sk-...", // or use KIMI_API_KEY / MOONSHOT_API_KEY
            baseUrl: "https://api.moonshot.ai/v1",
            model: "kimi-k2.6",
          },
        },
      },
    },
  },
  tools: {
    web: {
      search: {
        provider: "kimi",
      },
    },
  },
}

Advanced configuration

Native thinking mode

Moonshot API Kimi K3 always reasons at maximum effort. OpenClaw exposes only /think max, sends reasoning_effort: "max", and ignores stale lower or off settings.

Kimi Code K3 exposes /think off|max. Its Anthropic-compatible endpoint receives thinking.type: "disabled" for off, or adaptive thinking with output_config.effort: "max" for max. This applies to both kimi/k3 and kimi/k3[1m]. Moonshot API K3 supports auto, none, required, and pinned tool choices, so OpenClaw preserves the requested tool_choice. For multi-turn tool use, OpenClaw preserves the assistant reasoning content required by Moonshot's replay contract.

Kimi K2.7 Code always uses native thinking. Moonshot requires clients to omit the thinking field for this model, so OpenClaw exposes only on and ignores stale off settings. K2.7 also fixes temperature, top_p, n, presence_penalty, and frequency_penalty; OpenClaw omits configured overrides for those fields.

Other Moonshot Kimi models support binary native thinking:

• thinking: { type: "enabled" }
• thinking: { type: "disabled" }

Configure it per model via agents.defaults.models.<provider/model>.params:

{
  agents: {
    defaults: {
      models: {
        "moonshot/kimi-k2.6": {
          params: {
            thinking: { type: "disabled" },
          },
        },
      },
    },
  },
}

OpenClaw maps runtime /think levels for those models:

Warning

When Moonshot K2 thinking is enabled, tool_choice must be auto or none. A pinned tool choice (type: "tool" or type: "function") forces thinking back to disabled instead, so the requested tool still runs; tool_choice: "required" is normalized to auto instead. Kimi K2.7 Code cannot disable thinking, so its incompatible tool_choice is normalized to auto. Kimi K3 uses its separate reasoning-effort contract and preserves supported tool choices.

Kimi K2.6 also accepts an optional thinking.keep field that controls multi-turn retention of reasoning_content. Set it to "all" to keep full reasoning across turns; omit it (or leave it null) to use the server default strategy. OpenClaw only forwards thinking.keep for moonshot/kimi-k2.6 and strips it from other models. Kimi K2.7 Code preserves full reasoning history by default while OpenClaw omits the entire thinking field.

{
  agents: {
    defaults: {
      models: {
        "moonshot/kimi-k2.6": {
          params: {
            thinking: { type: "enabled", keep: "all" },
          },
        },
      },
    },
  },
}

Tool call id sanitization

Moonshot Kimi serves native tool_call ids shaped like functions.<name>:<index>. OpenClaw preserves the first occurrence of each native Kimi id and rewrites later duplicates to deterministic OpenAI-style call_* ids. Matching tool results are remapped with the same id so replay remains unique without stripping Kimi's first native id. This behavior is wired into the bundled Moonshot provider and is not a user-configurable setting.

Streaming usage compatibility

Native Moonshot endpoints (https://api.moonshot.ai/v1 and https://api.moonshot.cn/v1) advertise streaming usage compatibility. OpenClaw keys this off the endpoint host, not the provider id, so a custom provider id pointed at the same native Moonshot host inherits the same streaming-usage behavior.

With the catalog K2.6 pricing, streamed usage that includes input, output, and cache-read tokens is also converted into local estimated USD cost for /status, /usage full, /usage cost, and transcript-backed session accounting.

Endpoint and model ref reference

• Kimi web search uses KIMI_API_KEY or MOONSHOT_API_KEY, and defaults to https://api.moonshot.ai/v1 with model kimi-k2.6.
• Override pricing and context metadata in models.providers if needed.
• If Moonshot publishes different context limits for a model, adjust contextWindow accordingly.

Related

• Model selection, Choosing providers, model refs, and failover behavior.

• Web search, Configuring web search providers including Kimi.

• Configuration reference, Full config schema for providers, models, and plugins.

• Moonshot Open Platform, Manage your Moonshot API keys and access documentation.