Use OpenClaw with CometAPI

Use CometAPI as the model provider for OpenClaw — 500+ models in one API.

Prerequisites

Node.js ≥ 22 — recommended via nvm
A CometAPI account with an active API key — get yours here

Installation

Get your CometAPI API key

CometAPI dashboard showing the Add API Key button

Install or update OpenClaw

Recommended — use the official installer:

curl -fsSL https://openclaw.ai/install.sh | bash

Or install via npm:

npm install -g openclaw@latest

Then run the setup wizard once:

openclaw onboard --install-daemon

During onboarding, choose Skip in the Model/Auth step if you want to configure CometAPI manually. After onboarding, confirm the gateway is running:

openclaw gateway status
openclaw dashboard

Configuration

Store your CometAPI key

Write your key to ~/.openclaw/.env so it is available to the daemon without being hardcoded in config files:

printf 'COMETAPI_KEY=%s\n' "$COMETAPI_KEY" >> ~/.openclaw/.env
chmod 600 ~/.openclaw/.env

If you already inject COMETAPI_KEY through your shell, service manager, or a secrets workflow, skip this step — the config below uses $\{COMETAPI_KEY\} regardless of how the variable is set.

Configure CometAPI providers

CometAPI supports four API formats. Add one or more provider blocks to ~/.openclaw/openclaw.json:

Provider	API Format	Endpoint called	Base URL
`cometapi-openai`	`openai-completions`	`POST /v1/chat/completions`	`https://api.cometapi.com/v1`
`cometapi-openai-responses`	`openai-responses`	`POST /v1/responses`	`https://api.cometapi.com/v1`
`cometapi-claude`	`anthropic-messages`	`POST /messages`	`https://api.cometapi.com`
`cometapi-google`	`google-generative-ai`	`POST /v1beta/...`	`https://api.cometapi.com/v1beta`

{
  "agents": {
    "defaults": {
      "model": {
        "primary": "cometapi-claude/your-claude-model-id"
      }
    }
  },
  "models": {
    "mode": "merge",
    "providers": {
      "cometapi-openai": {
        "baseUrl": "https://api.cometapi.com/v1",
        "apiKey": "${COMETAPI_KEY}",
        "api": "openai-completions",
        "models": [{ "id": "your-chat-model-id", "name": "OpenAI-compatible text model" }]
      },
      "cometapi-openai-responses": {
        "baseUrl": "https://api.cometapi.com/v1",
        "apiKey": "${COMETAPI_KEY}",
        "api": "openai-responses",
        "models": [{ "id": "your-responses-model-id", "name": "Responses API model" }]
      },
      "cometapi-claude": {
        "baseUrl": "https://api.cometapi.com",
        "apiKey": "${COMETAPI_KEY}",
        "api": "anthropic-messages",
        "models": [{ "id": "your-claude-model-id", "name": "Claude family model" }]
      },
      "cometapi-google": {
        "baseUrl": "https://api.cometapi.com/v1beta",
        "apiKey": "${COMETAPI_KEY}",
        "api": "google-generative-ai",
        "models": [{ "id": "your-gemini-model-id", "name": "Gemini family model" }]
      }
    }
  }
}

You can keep only the providers you need, or keep all four to route between formats using provider/model references.Replace each your-...-model-id placeholder with a current model ID from the CometAPI Models page that matches the provider block.

Use cometapi-openai-responses (api: "openai-responses") for models that require the OpenAI Responses API. Use cometapi-openai (api: "openai-completions") for models on the classic Chat Completions path. Both share the same baseUrl (https://api.cometapi.com/v1); the only difference is which downstream endpoint OpenClaw calls.

The auth-profiles.json file is not required for this setup. Provider keys are resolved from models.providers.*.apiKey via the $\{COMETAPI_KEY\} env var. auth-profiles.json is only needed if you want per-profile credential rotation across multiple keys.

Verification

Restart and verify

Restart the gateway after adding .env or changing provider config:

openclaw gateway restart

Then run diagnostics:

openclaw models status
openclaw models list --provider cometapi-claude
openclaw doctor

A successful setup looks like:

openclaw models status resolves the primary model to cometapi-claude/your-claude-model-id with no missing-auth warnings for CometAPI providers
openclaw models list --provider cometapi-claude lists your configured models
openclaw doctor reports no config or auth errors for CometAPI providers

OpenClaw models status showing CometAPI providers authenticated

Switch models

# Set the default model in config
openclaw models set cometapi-claude/your-claude-model-id

# Switch for the current chat session
/model cometapi-openai/your-chat-model-id
/model cometapi-openai-responses/your-responses-model-id
/model cometapi-claude/your-claude-model-id
/model cometapi-google/your-gemini-model-id

Troubleshooting

Clean reinstall (optional)

If you are fixing a broken older setup, stop the gateway, remove ~/.openclaw, then rerun onboarding before applying the CometAPI config:

openclaw gateway stop
rm -rf ~/.openclaw
openclaw onboard --install-daemon

This removes all local config, sessions, logs, auth state, and workspaces. Then follow Steps 3–5 again.

Overview

AI coding agents

AI agents

AI chat clients

Translation and language

Automation platforms

Observability and evaluation

AI frameworks

Prerequisites

Installation

Configuration

Verification

Switch models

Troubleshooting

​Prerequisites

​Installation

​Configuration

​Verification

​Switch models

​Troubleshooting

Prerequisites

Installation

Configuration

Verification

Switch models

Troubleshooting