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openclaw/docs/providers/cohere.md
Peter Steinberger e7492c6fca feat(providers): refresh Qwen, Cohere, and Mistral catalogs (#102489)
* feat(providers): refresh popular model catalogs

* chore: leave release changelog to release automation

* docs: refresh provider docs map
2026-07-09 08:16:50 +01:00

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Cohere setup (auth + model selection) Cohere
You want to use Cohere with OpenClaw
You need the Cohere API key env var or CLI auth choice

Cohere provides OpenAI-compatible inference through its Compatibility API. OpenClaw bundles the Cohere provider during its externalization transition and also publishes it as an official external plugin.

Property Value
Provider id cohere
Plugin bundled during transition; official external package
Auth env var COHERE_API_KEY
Onboarding flag --auth-choice cohere-api-key
Direct CLI flag --cohere-api-key <key>
API OpenAI-compatible (openai-completions)
Base URL https://api.cohere.ai/compatibility/v1
Default model cohere/command-a-03-2025
Context window 256,000 tokens

Built-in catalog

Model ref Input Context Max output Notes
cohere/command-a-03-2025 text 256,000 8,000 Default model
cohere/north-mini-code-1-0 text, image 256,000 64,000 Agentic coding; reasoning; free limits

North Mini Code supports Cohere's two Compatibility API reasoning modes. OpenClaw maps off to none and every enabled thinking level to high.

Get started

  1. Cohere ships with current OpenClaw packages. If it is missing, install the external package and restart the Gateway:
openclaw plugins install @openclaw/cohere-provider
openclaw gateway restart
  1. Create a Cohere API key.
  2. Run onboarding:
openclaw onboard --non-interactive \
  --auth-choice cohere-api-key \
  --cohere-api-key "$COHERE_API_KEY"
  1. Confirm the catalog is available:
openclaw models list --provider cohere

Onboarding only sets Cohere as the primary model when no primary model is already configured.

Environment-only setup

Make COHERE_API_KEY available to the Gateway process, then select the Cohere model:

{
  agents: {
    defaults: {
      model: { primary: "cohere/command-a-03-2025" },
    },
  },
}
If the Gateway runs as a daemon or in Docker, set `COHERE_API_KEY` for that service. Exporting it only in an interactive shell does not make it available to an already-running Gateway.