Model Failover

Model failover

OpenClaw handles failures in two stages:

1. Auth profile rotation within the current provider.
2. Model fallback to the next model in agents.defaults.model.fallbacks.

This doc explains the runtime rules and the data that backs them.

Auth storage (keys + OAuth)

OpenClaw uses auth profiles for both API keys and OAuth tokens.

• Secrets live in ~/.openclaw/agents/<agentId>/agent/auth-profiles.json (legacy: ~/.openclaw/agent/auth-profiles.json).
• Config auth.profiles / auth.order are metadata + routing only (no secrets).
• Legacy import-only OAuth file: ~/.openclaw/credentials/oauth.json (imported into auth-profiles.json on first use).

More detail: /concepts/oauth

Credential types:

• type: "api_key" → { provider, key }
• type: "oauth" → { provider, access, refresh, expires, email? } (+ projectId/enterpriseUrl for some providers)

Profile IDs

OAuth logins create distinct profiles so multiple accounts can coexist.

• Default: provider:default when no email is available.
• OAuth with email: provider:<email> (for example google-antigravity:[e-mail]).

Profiles live in ~/.openclaw/agents/<agentId>/agent/auth-profiles.json under profiles.

Rotation order

When a provider has multiple profiles, OpenClaw chooses an order like this:

1. Explicit config: auth.order[provider] (if set).
2. Configured profiles: auth.profiles filtered by provider.
3. Stored profiles: entries in auth-profiles.json for the provider.

If no explicit order is configured, OpenClaw uses a round‑robin order:

• Primary key: profile type (OAuth before API keys).
• Secondary key: usageStats.lastUsed (oldest first, within each type).
• Cooldown/disabled profiles are moved to the end, ordered by soonest expiry.

Session stickiness (cache-friendly)

OpenClaw pins the chosen auth profile per session to keep provider caches warm. It does not rotate on every request. The pinned profile is reused until:

• the session is reset (/new / /reset)
• a compaction completes (compaction count increments)
• the profile is in cooldown/disabled

Manual selection via /model …@<profileId> sets a user override for that session and is not auto‑rotated until a new session starts.

Auto‑pinned profiles (selected by the session router) are treated as a preference: they are tried first, but OpenClaw may rotate to another profile on rate limits/timeouts. User‑pinned profiles stay locked to that profile; if it fails and model fallbacks are configured, OpenClaw moves to the next model instead of switching profiles.

Why OAuth can “look lost”

If you have both an OAuth profile and an API key profile for the same provider, round‑robin can switch between them across messages unless pinned. To force a single profile:

• Pin with auth.order[provider] = ["provider:profileId"], or
• Use a per-session override via /model … with a profile override (when supported by your UI/chat surface).

Cooldowns

When a profile fails due to auth/rate‑limit errors (or a timeout that looks like rate limiting), OpenClaw marks it in cooldown and moves to the next profile. Format/invalid‑request errors (for example Cloud Code Assist tool call ID validation failures) are treated as failover‑worthy and use the same cooldowns. OpenAI-compatible stop-reason errors such as Unhandled stop reason: error, stop reason: error, and reason: error are classified as timeout/failover signals.

Cooldowns use exponential backoff:

• 1 minute
• 5 minutes
• 25 minutes
• 1 hour (cap)

State is stored in auth-profiles.json under usageStats:

{
  "usageStats": {
    "provider:profile": {
      "lastUsed": 1736160000000,
      "cooldownUntil": 1736160600000,
      "errorCount": 2
    }
  }
}

Billing disables

Billing/credit failures (for example “insufficient credits” / “credit balance too low”) are treated as failover‑worthy, but they’re usually not transient. Instead of a short cooldown, OpenClaw marks the profile as disabled (with a longer backoff) and rotates to the next profile/provider.

State is stored in auth-profiles.json:

{
  "usageStats": {
    "provider:profile": {
      "disabledUntil": 1736178000000,
      "disabledReason": "billing"
    }
  }
}

Defaults:

• Billing backoff starts at 5 hours, doubles per billing failure, and caps at 24 hours.
• Backoff counters reset if the profile hasn’t failed for 24 hours (configurable).

Model fallback

If all profiles for a provider fail, OpenClaw moves to the next model in agents.defaults.model.fallbacks. This applies to auth failures, rate limits, and timeouts that exhausted profile rotation (other errors do not advance fallback).

When a run starts with a model override (hooks or CLI), fallbacks still end at agents.defaults.model.primary after trying any configured fallbacks.

Related config

See Gateway configuration for:

• auth.profiles / auth.order
• auth.cooldowns.billingBackoffHours / auth.cooldowns.billingBackoffHoursByProvider
• auth.cooldowns.billingMaxHours / auth.cooldowns.failureWindowHours
• agents.defaults.model.primary / agents.defaults.model.fallbacks
• agents.defaults.imageModel routing

See Models for the broader model selection and fallback overview.

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This page is sourced from openclaw/openclaw.