openclaw/docs/providers/google.md

summary, title, read_when

summary	title	read_when
Google Gemini setup (API key + OAuth, image generation, media understanding, TTS, web search)	Google (Gemini)	You want to use Google Gemini models with OpenClaw You need the API key or OAuth auth flow

The Google plugin provides access to Gemini models through Google AI Studio, plus image generation, media understanding (image/audio/video), text-to-speech, and web search via Gemini Grounding.

• Provider: google
• Auth: GEMINI_API_KEY or GOOGLE_API_KEY
• API: Google Gemini API
• Runtime option: agents.defaults.agentRuntime.id: "google-gemini-cli" reuses Gemini CLI OAuth while keeping model refs canonical as google/*.

Getting started

Choose your preferred auth method and follow the setup steps.

**Best for:** standard Gemini API access through Google AI Studio.

<Steps>
  <Step title="Run onboarding">
    ```bash
    openclaw onboard --auth-choice gemini-api-key
    ```

    Or pass the key directly:

    ```bash
    openclaw onboard --non-interactive \
      --mode local \
      --auth-choice gemini-api-key \
      --gemini-api-key "$GEMINI_API_KEY"
    ```
  </Step>
  <Step title="Set a default model">
    ```json5
    {
      agents: {
        defaults: {
          model: { primary: "google/gemini-3.1-pro-preview" },
        },
      },
    }
    ```
  </Step>
  <Step title="Verify the model is available">
    ```bash
    openclaw models list --provider google
    ```
  </Step>
</Steps>

<Tip>
The environment variables `GEMINI_API_KEY` and `GOOGLE_API_KEY` are both accepted. Use whichever you already have configured.
</Tip>

**Best for:** reusing an existing Gemini CLI login via PKCE OAuth instead of a separate API key.

<Warning>
The `google-gemini-cli` provider is an unofficial integration. Some users
report account restrictions when using OAuth this way. Use at your own risk.
</Warning>

<Steps>
  <Step title="Install the Gemini CLI">
    The local `gemini` command must be available on `PATH`.

    ```bash
    # Homebrew
    brew install gemini-cli

    # or npm
    npm install -g @google/gemini-cli
    ```

    OpenClaw supports both Homebrew installs and global npm installs, including
    common Windows/npm layouts.
  </Step>
  <Step title="Log in via OAuth">
    ```bash
    openclaw models auth login --provider google-gemini-cli --set-default
    ```
  </Step>
  <Step title="Verify the model is available">
    ```bash
    openclaw models list --provider google
    ```
  </Step>
</Steps>

- Default model: `google/gemini-3.1-pro-preview`
- Runtime: `google-gemini-cli`
- Alias: `gemini-cli`

Gemini 3.1 Pro's Gemini API model id is `gemini-3.1-pro-preview`. OpenClaw accepts the shorter `google/gemini-3.1-pro` as a convenience alias and normalizes it before provider calls.

**Environment variables:**

- `OPENCLAW_GEMINI_OAUTH_CLIENT_ID`
- `OPENCLAW_GEMINI_OAUTH_CLIENT_SECRET`

(Or the `GEMINI_CLI_*` variants.)

<Note>
If Gemini CLI OAuth requests fail after login, set `GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT` or
`GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT_ID` on the gateway host and retry.
</Note>

<Note>
If login fails before the browser flow starts, make sure the local `gemini`
command is installed and on `PATH`.
</Note>

`google-gemini-cli/*` model refs are legacy compatibility aliases. New
configs should use `google/*` model refs plus the `google-gemini-cli`
runtime when they want local Gemini CLI execution.

Capabilities

Capability	Supported
Chat completions	Yes
Image generation	Yes
Music generation	Yes
Text-to-speech	Yes
Realtime voice	Yes (Google Live API)
Image understanding	Yes
Audio transcription	Yes
Video understanding	Yes
Web search (Grounding)	Yes
Thinking/reasoning	Yes (Gemini 2.5+ / Gemini 3+)
Gemma 4 models	Yes

Web search

The bundled gemini web-search provider uses Gemini Google Search grounding. Configure a dedicated search key under plugins.entries.google.config.webSearch, or let it reuse models.providers.google.apiKey after GEMINI_API_KEY:

{
  plugins: {
    entries: {
      google: {
        config: {
          webSearch: {
            apiKey: "AIza...", // optional if GEMINI_API_KEY or models.providers.google.apiKey is set
            baseUrl: "https://generativelanguage.googleapis.com/v1beta", // falls back to models.providers.google.baseUrl
            model: "gemini-2.5-flash",
          },
        },
      },
    },
  },
}

Credential precedence is dedicated webSearch.apiKey, then GEMINI_API_KEY, then models.providers.google.apiKey. webSearch.baseUrl is optional and exists for operator proxies or compatible Gemini API endpoints; when omitted, Gemini web search reuses models.providers.google.baseUrl. See Gemini search for the provider-specific tool behavior.

Gemini 3 models use `thinkingLevel` rather than `thinkingBudget`. OpenClaw maps Gemini 3, Gemini 3.1, and `gemini-*-latest` alias reasoning controls to `thinkingLevel` so default/low-latency runs do not send disabled `thinkingBudget` values.

/think adaptive keeps Google's dynamic thinking semantics instead of choosing a fixed OpenClaw level. Gemini 3 and Gemini 3.1 omit a fixed thinkingLevel so Google can choose the level; Gemini 2.5 sends Google's dynamic sentinel thinkingBudget: -1.

Gemma 4 models (for example gemma-4-26b-a4b-it) support thinking mode. OpenClaw rewrites thinkingBudget to a supported Google thinkingLevel for Gemma 4. Setting thinking to off preserves thinking disabled instead of mapping to MINIMAL.

Image generation

The bundled google image-generation provider defaults to google/gemini-3.1-flash-image-preview.

• Also supports google/gemini-3-pro-image-preview
• Generate: up to 4 images per request
• Edit mode: enabled, up to 5 input images
• Geometry controls: size, aspectRatio, and resolution

To use Google as the default image provider:

{
  agents: {
    defaults: {
      imageGenerationModel: {
        primary: "google/gemini-3.1-flash-image-preview",
      },
    },
  },
}

See [Image Generation](/tools/image-generation) for shared tool parameters, provider selection, and failover behavior.

Video generation

The bundled google plugin also registers video generation through the shared video_generate tool.

• Default video model: google/veo-3.1-fast-generate-preview
• Modes: text-to-video, image-to-video, and single-video reference flows
• Supports aspectRatio, resolution, and audio
• Current duration clamp: 4 to 8 seconds

To use Google as the default video provider:

{
  agents: {
    defaults: {
      videoGenerationModel: {
        primary: "google/veo-3.1-fast-generate-preview",
      },
    },
  },
}

See [Video Generation](/tools/video-generation) for shared tool parameters, provider selection, and failover behavior.

Music generation

The bundled google plugin also registers music generation through the shared music_generate tool.

• Default music model: google/lyria-3-clip-preview
• Also supports google/lyria-3-pro-preview
• Prompt controls: lyrics and instrumental
• Output format: mp3 by default, plus wav on google/lyria-3-pro-preview
• Reference inputs: up to 10 images
• Session-backed runs detach through the shared task/status flow, including action: "status"

To use Google as the default music provider:

{
  agents: {
    defaults: {
      musicGenerationModel: {
        primary: "google/lyria-3-clip-preview",
      },
    },
  },
}

See [Music Generation](/tools/music-generation) for shared tool parameters, provider selection, and failover behavior.

Text-to-speech

The bundled google speech provider uses the Gemini API TTS path with gemini-3.1-flash-tts-preview.

• Default voice: Kore
• Auth: messages.tts.providers.google.apiKey, models.providers.google.apiKey, GEMINI_API_KEY, or GOOGLE_API_KEY
• Output: WAV for regular TTS attachments, Opus for voice-note targets, PCM for Talk/telephony
• Voice-note output: Google PCM is wrapped as WAV and transcoded to 48 kHz Opus with ffmpeg

To use Google as the default TTS provider:

{
  messages: {
    tts: {
      auto: "always",
      provider: "google",
      providers: {
        google: {
          model: "gemini-3.1-flash-tts-preview",
          voiceName: "Kore",
          audioProfile: "Speak professionally with a calm tone.",
        },
      },
    },
  },
}

Gemini API TTS uses natural-language prompting for style control. Set audioProfile to prepend a reusable style prompt before the spoken text. Set speakerName when your prompt text refers to a named speaker.

Gemini API TTS also accepts expressive square-bracket audio tags in the text, such as [whispers] or [laughs]. To keep tags out of the visible chat reply while sending them to TTS, put them inside a [[tts:text]]...[[/tts:text]] block:

Here is the clean reply text.

[[tts:text]][whispers] Here is the spoken version.[[/tts:text]]

A Google Cloud Console API key restricted to the Gemini API is valid for this provider. This is not the separate Cloud Text-to-Speech API path.

Realtime voice

The bundled google plugin registers a realtime voice provider backed by the Gemini Live API for backend audio bridges such as Voice Call and Google Meet.

Setting	Config path	Default
Model	plugins.entries.voice-call.config.realtime.providers.google.model	gemini-2.5-flash-native-audio-preview-12-2025
Voice	...google.voice	Kore
Temperature	...google.temperature	(unset)
VAD start sensitivity	...google.startSensitivity	(unset)
VAD end sensitivity	...google.endSensitivity	(unset)
Silence duration	...google.silenceDurationMs	(unset)
Activity handling	...google.activityHandling	Google default, start-of-activity-interrupts
Turn coverage	...google.turnCoverage	Google default, only-activity
Disable auto VAD	...google.automaticActivityDetectionDisabled	false
Session resumption	...google.sessionResumption	true
Context compression	...google.contextWindowCompression	true
API key	...google.apiKey	Falls back to models.providers.google.apiKey, GEMINI_API_KEY, or GOOGLE_API_KEY

Example Voice Call realtime config:

{
  plugins: {
    entries: {
      "voice-call": {
        enabled: true,
        config: {
          realtime: {
            enabled: true,
            provider: "google",
            providers: {
              google: {
                model: "gemini-2.5-flash-native-audio-preview-12-2025",
                voice: "Kore",
                activityHandling: "start-of-activity-interrupts",
                turnCoverage: "only-activity",
              },
            },
          },
        },
      },
    },
  },
}

Google Live API uses bidirectional audio and function calling over a WebSocket. OpenClaw adapts telephony/Meet bridge audio to Gemini's PCM Live API stream and keeps tool calls on the shared realtime voice contract. Leave `temperature` unset unless you need sampling changes; OpenClaw omits non-positive values because Google Live can return transcripts without audio for `temperature: 0`. Gemini API transcription is enabled without `languageCodes`; the current Google SDK rejects language-code hints on this API path. Control UI Talk supports Google Live browser sessions with constrained one-use tokens. Backend-only realtime voice providers can also run through the generic Gateway relay transport, which keeps provider credentials on the Gateway.

For maintainer live verification, run OPENAI_API_KEY=... GEMINI_API_KEY=... node --import tsx scripts/dev/realtime-talk-live-smoke.ts. The Google leg mints the same constrained Live API token shape used by Control UI Talk, opens the browser WebSocket endpoint, sends the initial setup payload, and waits for setupComplete.

Advanced configuration

For direct Gemini API runs (`api: "google-generative-ai"`), OpenClaw passes a configured `cachedContent` handle through to Gemini requests.

- Configure per-model or global params with either
  `cachedContent` or legacy `cached_content`
- If both are present, `cachedContent` wins
- Example value: `cachedContents/prebuilt-context`
- Gemini cache-hit usage is normalized into OpenClaw `cacheRead` from
  upstream `cachedContentTokenCount`

```json5
{
  agents: {
    defaults: {
      models: {
        "google/gemini-2.5-pro": {
          params: {
            cachedContent: "cachedContents/prebuilt-context",
          },
        },
      },
    },
  },
}
```

When using the `google-gemini-cli` OAuth provider, OpenClaw normalizes the CLI JSON output as follows:

- Reply text comes from the CLI JSON `response` field.
- Usage falls back to `stats` when the CLI leaves `usage` empty.
- `stats.cached` is normalized into OpenClaw `cacheRead`.
- If `stats.input` is missing, OpenClaw derives input tokens from
  `stats.input_tokens - stats.cached`.

If the Gateway runs as a daemon (launchd/systemd), make sure `GEMINI_API_KEY` is available to that process (for example, in `~/.openclaw/.env` or via `env.shellEnv`).

Related

Choosing providers, model refs, and failover behavior. Shared image tool parameters and provider selection. Shared video tool parameters and provider selection. Shared music tool parameters and provider selection.