openclaw/docs/providers/deepseek.md

summary, read_when

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

DeepSeek

DeepSeek provides powerful AI models with an OpenAI-compatible API.

• Provider: deepseek
• Auth: DEEPSEEK_API_KEY
• API: OpenAI-compatible

Quick start

Set the API key (recommended: store it for the Gateway):

openclaw onboard --auth-choice deepseek-api-key

This will prompt for your API key and set deepseek/deepseek-chat as the default model.

Non-interactive example

openclaw onboard --non-interactive \
  --mode local \
  --auth-choice deepseek-api-key \
  --deepseek-api-key "$DEEPSEEK_API_KEY" \
  --skip-health \
  --accept-risk

Environment note

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

Available models

Model ID	Name	Type	Context
deepseek-chat	DeepSeek Chat (V3.2)	General	128K
deepseek-reasoner	DeepSeek Reasoner (V3.2)	Reasoning	128K

• deepseek-chat corresponds to DeepSeek-V3.2 in non-thinking mode.
• deepseek-reasoner corresponds to DeepSeek-V3.2 in thinking mode with chain-of-thought reasoning.

Get your API key at platform.deepseek.com.