openclaw/docs/providers/vllm.md

summary, read_when, title

summary	read_when	title
Run OpenClaw with vLLM (OpenAI-compatible local server)	You want to run OpenClaw against a local vLLM server You want OpenAI-compatible /v1 endpoints with your own models	vLLM

vLLM

vLLM can serve open-source (and some custom) models via an OpenAI-compatible HTTP API. OpenClaw can connect to vLLM using the openai-completions API.

OpenClaw can also auto-discover available models from vLLM when you opt in with VLLM_API_KEY (any value works if your server doesn’t enforce auth) and you do not define an explicit models.providers.vllm entry.

Quick start

1. Start vLLM with an OpenAI-compatible server.

Your base URL should expose /v1 endpoints (e.g. /v1/models, /v1/chat/completions). vLLM commonly runs on:

• http://127.0.0.1:8000/v1

2. Opt in (any value works if no auth is configured):

export VLLM_API_KEY="vllm-local"

3. Select a model (replace with one of your vLLM model IDs):

{
  agents: {
    defaults: {
      model: { primary: "vllm/your-model-id" },
    },
  },
}

Model discovery (implicit provider)

When VLLM_API_KEY is set (or an auth profile exists) and you do not define models.providers.vllm, OpenClaw will query:

• GET http://127.0.0.1:8000/v1/models

…and convert the returned IDs into model entries.

If you set models.providers.vllm explicitly, auto-discovery is skipped and you must define models manually.

Explicit configuration (manual models)

Use explicit config when:

• vLLM runs on a different host/port.
• You want to pin contextWindow/maxTokens values.
• Your server requires a real API key (or you want to control headers).

{
  models: {
    providers: {
      vllm: {
        baseUrl: "http://127.0.0.1:8000/v1",
        apiKey: "${VLLM_API_KEY}",
        api: "openai-completions",
        models: [
          {
            id: "your-model-id",
            name: "Local vLLM Model",
            reasoning: false,
            input: ["text"],
            cost: { input: 0, output: 0, cacheRead: 0, cacheWrite: 0 },
            contextWindow: 128000,
            maxTokens: 8192,
          },
        ],
      },
    },
  },
}

Troubleshooting

• Check the server is reachable:

curl http://127.0.0.1:8000/v1/models

• If requests fail with auth errors, set a real VLLM_API_KEY that matches your server configuration, or configure the provider explicitly under models.providers.vllm.