Vercel AI Gateway Provider Guide

The Vercel AI Gateway offers a single endpoint that exposes a unified API for reaching hundreds of models.

Property	Value
Provider	`vercel-ai-gateway`
Package	`@openclaw/vercel-ai-gateway-provider`
Auth	`AI_GATEWAY_API_KEY`
API	Anthropic Messages compatible
Base URL	`https://ai-gateway.vercel.sh`
Model catalog	Auto-discovered via `/v1/models`

Tip

Because OpenClaw automatically discovers the Gateway /v1/models catalog, both the /models vercel-ai-gateway chat command and openclaw models list --provider vercel-ai-gateway carry current model refs like vercel-ai-gateway/openai/gpt-5.5 and vercel-ai-gateway/moonshotai/kimi-k2.6.

Getting started

Install the plugin

openclaw plugins install @openclaw/vercel-ai-gateway-provider

Set the API key

openclaw onboard --auth-choice ai-gateway-api-key

Set a default model

{
  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

openclaw onboard --non-interactive --accept-risk --skip-health \
  --mode local \
  --auth-choice ai-gateway-api-key \
  --ai-gateway-api-key "$AI_GATEWAY_API_KEY"

Model ID shorthand

At runtime, OpenClaw normalizes Claude shorthand model refs:

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`

Tip

Either form works in your configuration; the canonical anthropic/... ref gets resolved automatically by OpenClaw.

Advanced configuration

Environment variable for daemon processes

When the OpenClaw Gateway operates as a daemon (launchd/systemd), ensure AI_GATEWAY_API_KEY is accessible to that process.

Warning

A key set only in an interactive shell stays hidden from a launchd/systemd daemon unless that environment is explicitly imported. To guarantee the gateway process can access it, place the key in ~/.openclaw/.env or set it via env.shellEnv.

Provider routing

Each request through Vercel AI Gateway is forwarded to the upstream provider indicated by the model ref prefix. As an example, vercel-ai-gateway/anthropic/claude-opus-4.6 goes to Anthropic, vercel-ai-gateway/openai/gpt-5.5 goes to OpenAI, and vercel-ai-gateway/moonshotai/kimi-k2.6 goes to MoonshotAI. A single AI_GATEWAY_API_KEY handles authentication for every upstream provider.

Thinking levels

When OpenClaw recognizes the upstream model prefix, /think options follow it. vercel-ai-gateway/anthropic/... applies the Claude thinking profile, including the adaptive default for Claude 4.6 models. Trusted vercel-ai-gateway/openai/... refs (gpt-5.2 and later, plus Codex variants back to gpt-5.1-codex) expose /think xhigh. Other namespaced refs retain the standard reasoning levels unless their catalog metadata specifies more.

Model selection, Picking providers, model refs, and failover behavior.
Troubleshooting, FAQ and general troubleshooting.