Configure OpenClaw Model Capabilities
Declare model capabilities before onboarding so NemoClaw can bake them into the OpenClaw configuration. Use these settings only when the selected model and provider support the capability you declare.
Configure Reasoning Mode
Set NEMOCLAW_REASONING=true for a reasoning model.
The default is false.
For a compatible Anthropic endpoint, reasoning mode also skips the onboarding streaming check intended for models that emit normal response content. Agent requests still use the streaming path, so confirm the endpoint’s runtime behavior separately.
Configure Reasoning Effort
Set NEMOCLAW_REASONING_EFFORT only when the provider is compatible-endpoint and the selected API is openai-completions.
The endpoint must accept an explicit reasoning budget.
The variable accepts low, medium, high, or default.
The default is unset, which leaves the endpoint’s own default in place.
During onboarding, NemoClaw parses every explicit value before provider recovery or selection.
A value outside low, medium, high, and default fails before NemoClaw touches the provider, policies, the sandbox, or the registry.
After provider selection, NemoClaw also rejects every explicit value, including default, unless the resulting route uses the compatible-endpoint provider with the openai-completions API.
default names the unset state, which is useful to clear an effort that a sandbox already records.
NemoClaw writes params.extra_body.reasoning_effort on the model entry in the built OpenClaw config.
OpenClaw merges that field into the request body.
NemoClaw does not add the field for another API family.
Reasoning effort is independent of NEMOCLAW_REASONING.
NEMOCLAW_REASONING declares that the model reasons, and NEMOCLAW_REASONING_EFFORT declares how much.
Verify Reasoning Effort
NemoClaw reports the effective non-secret setting for a compatible-endpoint route that uses openai-completions.
During onboarding, nemoclaw onboard --events=jsonl includes reasoningEffort in each applicable event context.
The sandbox status output prints Reasoning effort, and nemoclaw <sandbox-name> doctor --json includes an informational Inference check labeled Reasoning effort.
An explicit override appears as low, medium, or high.
When the route uses the endpoint’s own setting, these diagnostics report endpoint-default.
They omit the field or check for another provider or API family and never include endpoint credentials.
Configure Image Input
Set NEMOCLAW_INFERENCE_INPUTS=text,image only when the model accepts image input through the selected provider.
The default is text.
During interactive onboarding, NemoClaw prompts for Text only or Text + Image when the discovered model name appears multimodal and NEMOCLAW_INFERENCE_INPUTS is not already valid.
Non-interactive onboarding uses the environment value or the default text setting.
Apply Capability Changes
These settings are build-time inputs. Recreate an existing sandbox after changing any of these values.
Onboarding records the reasoning flag and the reasoning effort in the sandbox’s session and registry entry.
A resumed onboard and nemoclaw <sandbox-name> rebuild both replay those recorded values, so exporting NEMOCLAW_REASONING or NEMOCLAW_REASONING_EFFORT before either command does not change them.
When a resumed onboard on the compatible-endpoint provider sees an explicit NEMOCLAW_REASONING or NEMOCLAW_REASONING_EFFORT that disagrees with the recorded value, it reports the recorded value and the recreate command instead of applying the variable.
Deep Agents Code applies the recorded reasoning effort from the sandbox image instead, and has no inference set path.
Refer to Quickstart with Deep Agents for that agent’s behavior.
To change the reasoning effort on a running OpenClaw sandbox without a recreate, pass --reasoning-effort to inference set.
Pass --reasoning-effort default on a compatible-endpoint route that uses openai-completions to clear a recorded effort.
An ordinary sandbox restart preserves this runtime value or endpoint-default state; startup does not reapply the image’s original onboarding value.
--reasoning-effort overrides NEMOCLAW_REASONING_EFFORT.
When you omit the flag, inference set applies an exported NEMOCLAW_REASONING_EFFORT.
For either explicit input, inference set parses the value and resolves the provider and API before any mutation.
It rejects every explicit value, including default, unless the resulting route uses compatible-endpoint and openai-completions.
When neither is set, the sandbox keeps the recorded effort only while the resulting route still uses compatible-endpoint and openai-completions.
Without an explicit effort input, switching to another provider or API family clears the recorded effort.
For context-window and output-token settings, refer to Configure Model Limits.