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Guides

CLI automation

Use --non-interactive to automate openclaw onboard.

Baseline non-interactive example

bash
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:

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

Provider-specific examples

Anthropic API key example
bash
openclaw onboard --non-interactive \  --mode local \  --auth-choice apiKey \  --anthropic-api-key "$ANTHROPIC_API_KEY" \  --gateway-port 18789 \  --gateway-bind loopback
Gemini example
bash
openclaw onboard --non-interactive \  --mode local \  --auth-choice gemini-api-key \  --gemini-api-key "$GEMINI_API_KEY" \  --gateway-port 18789 \  --gateway-bind loopback
Z.AI example
bash
openclaw onboard --non-interactive \  --mode local \  --auth-choice zai-api-key \  --zai-api-key "$ZAI_API_KEY" \  --gateway-port 18789 \  --gateway-bind loopback
Vercel AI Gateway example
bash
openclaw onboard --non-interactive \  --mode local \  --auth-choice ai-gateway-api-key \  --ai-gateway-api-key "$AI_GATEWAY_API_KEY" \  --gateway-port 18789 \  --gateway-bind loopback
Cloudflare AI Gateway example
bash
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 "$CLOUDFLARE_AI_GATEWAY_API_KEY" \  --gateway-port 18789 \  --gateway-bind loopback
Moonshot example
bash
openclaw onboard --non-interactive \  --mode local \  --auth-choice moonshot-api-key \  --moonshot-api-key "$MOONSHOT_API_KEY" \  --gateway-port 18789 \  --gateway-bind loopback
Mistral example
bash
openclaw onboard --non-interactive \  --mode local \  --auth-choice mistral-api-key \  --mistral-api-key "$MISTRAL_API_KEY" \  --gateway-port 18789 \  --gateway-bind loopback
Synthetic example
bash
openclaw onboard --non-interactive \  --mode local \  --auth-choice synthetic-api-key \  --synthetic-api-key "$SYNTHETIC_API_KEY" \  --gateway-port 18789 \  --gateway-bind loopback
OpenCode example
bash
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
bash
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
bash
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:

bash
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

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

bash
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.
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