> For clean Markdown of any page, append .md to the page URL.
> For a complete documentation index, see https://docs.nvidia.com/nemoclaw/llms.txt.
> For AI client integration (Claude Code, Cursor, etc.), connect to the MCP server at https://docs.nvidia.com/nemoclaw/_mcp/server.

# Understand Provider Validation

> Understand how NemoClaw validates inference credentials, models, APIs, and streaming behavior during onboarding.

NemoClaw validates the selected provider and model before it creates a sandbox.
The exact request depends on the provider API that the agent uses.

## Credential Validation

When credential validation fails, the onboarding wizard lets you re-enter the API key, choose another provider, retry, or exit.
NemoClaw retries transient upstream failures before it reports a provider failure.

The `nvapi-` prefix check applies only to `NVIDIA_INFERENCE_API_KEY`.
OpenRouter keys must be non-empty and begin with `sk-or-`.
Other provider keys use provider-aware validation during the retry flow.

## Provider Requests

NemoClaw sends a provider-specific request that exercises the API surface intended for the route.

| Provider                         | Validation request                                                                                       |
| -------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| OpenAI                           | Tries `/responses`, then `/chat/completions`.                                                            |
| NVIDIA Endpoints                 | Uses `/v1/chat/completions` and skips `/v1/responses`.                                                   |
| OpenRouter                       | Uses `/v1/chat/completions` for catalog, model, and smoke validation.                                    |
| Google Gemini                    | Uses the OpenAI-compatible chat-completions path and skips `/v1/responses`.                              |
| Other OpenAI-compatible endpoint | Tries `/v1/responses` with tool-calling and streaming checks, then falls back to `/v1/chat/completions`. |
| Local NVIDIA NIM                 | Uses `/v1/chat/completions` and skips `/v1/responses`.                                                   |

For an OpenAI-compatible endpoint, the runtime defaults to `/v1/chat/completions` even when the Responses probe succeeds.
Set `NEMOCLAW_PREFERRED_API=openai-responses` before onboarding to select `/v1/responses` only after the probe verifies the required streaming behavior.
Set `NEMOCLAW_PREFERRED_API=openai-completions` to skip the Responses probe and validate Chat Completions only.

The managed Deep Agents runtime keeps `use_responses_api = false` and uses Chat Completions through `https://inference.local/v1`.
`NEMOCLAW_PREFERRED_API` does not change that runtime selection.

## Anthropic-Compatible Requests

For Hermes and other agents that use only OpenAI-compatible inference, NemoClaw validates `/v1/chat/completions` for a custom Anthropic selection.
This is the API surface that the managed OpenAI frontend uses at runtime.

## Compatible Endpoint Probes

Compatible endpoint validation sends a real inference request because many proxies do not expose `/models`.
For an OpenAI-compatible endpoint, a reasoning model that returns only reasoning content can receive a retry with a larger response budget before NemoClaw reports failure.
Route, configuration, and authentication failures still fail immediately.

An endpoint that is reachable only through `http://host.openshell.internal:<port>` cannot receive the host-side API probe.
Verify that route from inside the sandbox after onboarding.

## Related Topics

* [Verify the Sandbox Inference Route](verify-inference-route) to test the route the agent uses.
* [Set Up an OpenAI-Compatible Endpoint](../custom-endpoints/set-up-openai-compatible-endpoint) for custom endpoint setup.