How to Change Your ZeroClaw LLM Provider & API Key

The default config uses OpenRouter with anthropic/claude-sonnet-4.5. Here's how to change it.

Before You Start

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Step 1: Stop ZeroClaw

If the daemon is running, press Ctrl+C to stop it.

Step 2: Change the Provider

Replace gemini below with the provider you want to use.

sed -i 's|^default_provider = .*|default_provider = "gemini"|' ~/.zeroclaw/config.toml

This finds the default_provider line in your config file and replaces it. No output means it worked.

Supported providers:

Provider	Config name	Get API key at
OpenRouter	`openrouter`	openrouter.ai
Anthropic	`anthropic`	console.anthropic.com
OpenAI	`openai`	platform.openai.com
Google Gemini	`gemini`	aistudio.google.com
Ollama (local)	`ollama`	No key needed
Groq	`groq`	console.groq.com
Mistral	`mistral`	console.mistral.ai
DeepSeek	`deepseek`	platform.deepseek.com
xAI	`xai`	console.x.ai
Venice	`venice`	venice.ai

Step 3: Change the Model

Replace gemini-2.0-flash-exp below with the model you want to use.

sed -i 's|^default_model = .*|default_model = "gemini-2.0-flash-exp"|' ~/.zeroclaw/config.toml

The model name format depends on your provider:

Provider	Example model
OpenRouter	`anthropic/claude-sonnet-4.5`
Anthropic	`claude-sonnet-4-20250514`
OpenAI	`gpt-4o`
Gemini	`gemini-2.0-flash-exp`
Ollama	`glm4:9b` (whatever shows in `ollama list`)
Groq	`llama-3.3-70b-versatile`
DeepSeek	`deepseek-chat`

Step 4: Set the API Key

Replace YOUR_API_KEY below with your actual API key from the provider you chose in Step 2.

sed -i '/^api_key/d' ~/.zeroclaw/config.toml
sed -i '1i api_key = "YOUR_API_KEY"' ~/.zeroclaw/config.toml

First command deletes any existing api_key line. Second command adds your new one at the top of the file.

If using Ollama (local), skip this step. No API key needed.

Step 5: Verify the Changes

head -3 ~/.zeroclaw/config.toml

You should see your new api_key, default_provider, and default_model values.

Step 6: Restart the Daemon

zeroclaw daemon

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