CLI backends

OpenClaw can run a local AI CLI as a text-only fallback when API providers are down, rate-limited, or misbehaving. It is intentionally conservative:

• OpenClaw tools are not injected directly, but a backend with bundleMcp: true can receive gateway tools through a loopback MCP bridge.
• JSONL streaming for CLIs that support it.
• Sessions are supported, so follow-up turns stay coherent.
• Images pass through if the CLI accepts image paths.

Use it as a safety net for "always works" text responses, not a primary path. For a full harness runtime with ACP session controls, background tasks, thread/conversation binding, and persistent external coding sessions, use ACP Agents instead; CLI backends are not ACP.

Quick start

The bundled Anthropic plugin registers a default claude-cli backend, so it works with no config beyond having Claude Code installed and logged in:

openclaw agent --agent main --message "hi" --model claude-cli/claude-sonnet-4-6

main is the default agent id when no explicit agent list is configured; swap in your own agent id otherwise.

The gateway service must have the CLI on its PATH. If a deployment needs a nonstandard executable path or arguments, register that adapter in a CLI backend plugin instead of putting launch mechanics in openclaw.json.

OpenClaw auto-loads an owning bundled plugin when model selection or a model-scoped agentRuntime.id references its backend.

Using it as a fallback

Add the CLI backend to your fallback list so it only runs when primary models fail:

{  agents: {    defaults: {      model: {        primary: "anthropic/claude-opus-4-6",        fallbacks: ["claude-cli/claude-sonnet-4-6"],      },      models: {        "anthropic/claude-opus-4-6": { alias: "Opus" },        "claude-cli/claude-sonnet-4-6": {},      },    },  },}

Configured fallbacks remain eligible when the primary provider fails (auth, rate limits, timeouts), even when they are not in agents.defaults.modelPolicy.allow. Add a CLI backend model to that policy only when users should also be able to select it directly through /model, a session override, or --model. agents.defaults.models only owns per-model aliases, parameters, and metadata.

Configuration

Users choose a registered backend through the model and runtime policy. Keep the model ref canonical and select the CLI runtime per model:

{  agents: {    defaults: {      model: "anthropic/claude-opus-5",      models: {        "anthropic/claude-opus-5": {          agentRuntime: { id: "claude-cli" },        },      },    },  },}

Credentials remain in OpenClaw auth profiles or the owning plugin's config. Command, argv, environment, parsing, session, image, and watchdog mechanics are plugin code registered with api.registerCliBackend(...).

How it works

1. Selects a backend by provider prefix (claude-cli/...).
2. Builds a system prompt using the same OpenClaw prompt and workspace context.
3. Executes the CLI with a session id (if supported) so history stays consistent. The bundled claude-cli backend keeps a Claude stdio process alive per OpenClaw session and sends follow-up turns over stream-json stdin.
4. Parses output (JSON or plain text) and returns the final text.
5. Persists session ids per backend so follow-ups reuse the same CLI session.

Timeouts and long-running work

CLI backends have two independent limits:

• agents.defaults.timeoutSeconds limits the whole agent turn. Normal Gateway turns inherit the 48-hour default; 0 makes the turn budget unlimited. A stored override such as 600 replaces that default.
• The CLI no-output watchdog stops a subprocess that remains silent. Each backend plugin owns separate fresh/resume profiles, and the watchdog remains active even when the overall turn budget is unlimited.

Remove a short overall-timeout override to return to the 48-hour default, or set an explicit budget such as 12 hours:

# Return to the 48-hour default:openclaw config unset agents.defaults.timeoutSeconds # Or choose an explicit 12-hour limit:openclaw config set agents.defaults.timeoutSeconds 43200

Background work started inside a CLI is still part of that CLI subprocess. If the parent turn reaches its overall limit, OpenClaw stops the subprocess and its CLI-internal background tasks together. For durable long work, use a detached OpenClaw sub-agent or ACP agent; detached sub-agents have no run timeout by default.

The openclaw agent command also has its own request deadline. Its 600-second fallback default applies to that command invocation, not to ordinary Gateway turns; see openclaw agent.

Claude CLI specifics

The bundled claude-cli backend prefers Claude Code's native skill resolver. When the current skills snapshot has at least one selected skill with a materialized path, OpenClaw passes a temporary Claude Code plugin via --plugin-dir and omits the duplicate OpenClaw skills catalog from the appended system prompt. Without a materialized plugin skill, OpenClaw keeps the prompt catalog as a fallback. Skill env/API key overrides still apply to the child process environment for the run.

Claude CLI has its own noninteractive permission mode; OpenClaw maps that to the existing exec policy instead of adding Claude-specific config. For OpenClaw-managed Claude live sessions, the effective exec policy is authoritative: YOLO (tools.exec.mode: "full") normally launches Claude with --permission-mode bypassPermissions, while a restrictive policy launches it with --permission-mode default. Root-run gateways also use default because Claude Code rejects bypass mode for root. Per-agent agents.entries.*.tools.exec settings override the global tools.exec for that agent. The Anthropic plugin normalizes Claude's permission flags to match the effective policy and host restriction.

Under a restrictive policy, Claude asks OpenClaw over stdio before using one of its native or extension tools (its own Bash, WebFetch, or Claude in Chrome browser tools). When the effective exec ask setting is on-miss or always, OpenClaw relays each request as an interactive approval to the session's channel: Allow once permits the single call, Allow always permits that tool name for the rest of the live Claude session (in memory only, never persisted), and Deny, a timeout, or an unreachable approval route all deny the call. Policies that never prompt keep their old behavior: security: "deny" rejects every request, and ask off with less than full security (exec mode allowlist) denies without asking.

Claude browser tools and 1Password sign-in

Claude Code can drive a Chrome browser through the Claude in Chrome extension, including 1Password for Claude credential autofill. The bundled backend does not enable it; register a CLI backend plugin that appends --chrome to the launch args of a claude-stream-json-dialect backend. OpenClaw preserves a configured --chrome on normal runs and always forces --no-chrome on runs with a restricted tool policy, such as side questions. The Chrome window, the extension, and any 1Password approval prompts live on the gateway host, so someone must be at that machine to approve credential use.

The backend also maps OpenClaw /think levels to Claude Code's native --effort flag: minimal/low -> low, medium -> medium, and high/xhigh/max pass through directly. This keeps the supported Fable 5 effort levels the same for subscription-backed Claude CLI and API-key routes. adaptive removes configured --effort flags and supplies no replacement, so Claude Code resolves effective effort from its own environment, settings, and model defaults. Other CLI backends need their owning plugin to declare an equivalent argv mapper before /think affects the spawned CLI.

Before OpenClaw can use claude-cli, Claude Code itself must be logged in on the same host:

claude auth loginclaude auth status --textopenclaw models auth login --provider anthropic --method cli --set-default

Docker installs need Claude Code installed and logged in inside the persisted container home, not only on the host; see Claude CLI backend in Docker.

The gateway service must resolve claude on PATH. For a nonstandard path, register a small wrapper backend plugin.

Sessions

• If the CLI supports sessions, set sessionArgs with a {sessionId} placeholder (for example ["--session-id", "{sessionId}"]).
• If the CLI uses a resume subcommand with different flags, set resumeArgs (replaces args when resuming) and optionally resumeOutput for non-JSON resumes.
• sessionMode:
  • always: always send a session id (new UUID if none stored).
  • existing: only send a session id if one was stored before.
  • none: never send a session id.
• claude-cli defaults to liveSession: "claude-stdio", output: "jsonl", and input: "stdin", so follow-up turns reuse the live Claude process while it is active, including for custom configs that omit transport fields. If the gateway restarts or the idle process exits, OpenClaw resumes from the stored Claude session id. Stored session ids are verified against a readable project transcript before resume; a missing transcript clears the binding (logged as reason=transcript-missing) instead of silently starting a fresh session under --resume.
• Claude live sessions keep bounded JSONL output guards: 8 MiB and 20,000 raw JSONL lines per turn.
• Stored CLI sessions are provider-owned continuity. Automatic reset is disabled by default; /reset and explicit daily or idle session.reset policies still cut them.
• Fresh CLI sessions normally reseed only from OpenClaw's compaction summary plus the post-compaction tail. To recover short sessions invalidated before compaction, a backend can opt in with reseedFromRawTranscriptWhenUncompacted: true. Raw transcript reseed stays bounded and limited to safe invalidations, such as a missing CLI transcript, an orphaned tool-use tail, message-policy/system-prompt/cwd/MCP changes, or a session-expired retry; auth profile or credential-epoch changes never reseed raw transcript history.

Serialization: serialize: true keeps same-lane runs ordered (most CLIs serialize on one provider lane). OpenClaw also drops stored CLI session reuse when the selected auth identity changes, including a changed auth profile id, static API key, static token, or OAuth account identity when the CLI exposes one; OAuth access/refresh token rotation alone does not cut the session. If a CLI has no stable OAuth account id, OpenClaw lets that CLI enforce its own resume permissions.

Fallback prelude from claude-cli sessions

When a claude-cli attempt fails over to a non-CLI candidate in agents.defaults.model.fallbacks, OpenClaw seeds the next attempt with a context prelude harvested from Claude Code's local JSONL transcript (under ~/.claude/projects/, keyed per workspace). Without this seed the fallback provider starts cold, since OpenClaw's own session transcript is empty for claude-cli runs.

• The prelude prefers the latest /compact summary or compact_boundary marker, then appends the most recent post-boundary turns up to a char budget. Pre-boundary turns are dropped because the summary already represents them.
• Tool blocks are coalesced to compact (tool call: name) and (tool result: …) hints to keep the prompt budget honest; an oversized summary is truncated and labeled (truncated).
• Same-provider claude-cli to claude-cli fallbacks rely on Claude's own --resume and skip the prelude.
• The seed reuses the existing Claude session-file path validation, so arbitrary paths cannot be read.

Images

Plugin authors declare image-path support with imageArg:

imageArg: "--image",imageMode: "repeat"

OpenClaw writes base64 images to temp files. If imageArg is set, those paths are passed as CLI args; if not, OpenClaw appends the file paths to the prompt (path injection), which works for CLIs that auto-load local files from plain paths.

Inputs and outputs

• output: "text" (default) treats stdout as the final response.
• output: "json" tries to parse JSON and extract text plus a session id.
• output: "jsonl" parses a JSONL stream and extracts the final agent message plus session identifiers when present.
• For Gemini CLI JSON output, OpenClaw reads reply text from response and usage from stats when usage is missing or empty. The bundled Gemini CLI adapter uses stream-json.

Input modes:

• input: "arg" (default) passes the prompt as the last CLI arg.
• input: "stdin" sends the prompt via stdin.
• If the prompt is very long and maxPromptArgChars is set, stdin is used instead.

Plugin-owned defaults

CLI backend defaults are part of the plugin surface:

• Plugins register them with api.registerCliBackend(...).
• The backend id becomes the provider prefix in model refs.
• Command, argv, environment, parser, session, and watchdog behavior stays in plugin code.
• Backend-specific normalization stays plugin-owned through the optional normalizeConfig hook.

Anthropic owns claude-cli and Google owns google-gemini-cli. OpenAI Codex agent runs use the Codex app-server harness through openai/*; OpenClaw no longer registers a bundled codex-cli backend.

The bundled Anthropic plugin registers for claude-cli:

The bundled Google plugin registers for google-gemini-cli:

Prerequisite: the local Gemini CLI must be installed and on PATH as gemini (brew install gemini-cli or npm install -g @google/gemini-cli).

Gemini CLI output notes:

• The default stream-json parser reads assistant message events, tool events, final result usage, and fatal Gemini error events.
• Usage falls back to stats when usage is absent or empty; stats.cached normalizes into OpenClaw cacheRead, and if stats.input is missing, input tokens derive from stats.input_tokens - stats.cached.

Text transform overlays

Plugins that need small prompt/message compatibility shims can declare bidirectional text transforms without replacing a provider or CLI backend:

api.registerTextTransforms({  input: [{ from: /red basket/g, to: "blue basket" }],  output: [{ from: /blue basket/g, to: "red basket" }],});

input rewrites the system prompt and user prompt passed to the CLI. output rewrites streamed assistant text and parsed final text before OpenClaw handles its own control markers and channel delivery; for provider-backed model calls it also restores string values inside structured tool-call arguments after stream repair and before tool execution. Raw provider JSON fragments are left unchanged; consumers should use the structured partial, end, or result payload.

For CLIs that emit provider-specific JSONL events, set jsonlDialect on that backend's config: claude-stream-json for Claude Code-compatible streams, gemini-stream-json for Gemini CLI stream-json events.

Native compaction ownership

Some CLI backends run an agent that compacts its own transcript, so OpenClaw must not run its safeguard summarizer against them — doing so fights the backend's own compaction and can hard-fail the turn.

claude-cli has no harness endpoint (Claude Code compacts internally), so it declares ownsNativeCompaction: true and OpenClaw's compaction path returns the session entry unchanged. OpenClaw passes the run's effective context budget through Claude Code's documented CLAUDE_CODE_AUTO_COMPACT_WINDOW, keeping native auto-compaction aligned with configured Anthropic contextTokens limits. Native-harness sessions such as Codex keep routing to their harness compaction endpoint instead.

api.registerCliBackend({ id: "my-cli", ownsNativeCompaction: true /* ... */ });

Only declare ownsNativeCompaction for a backend that genuinely owns compaction: it must reliably bound its own transcript near the context window and persist a resumable session (e.g. --resume / --session-id), or a deferred session can stay over budget.

Bundle MCP overlays

CLI backends do not receive OpenClaw tool calls directly, but a backend can opt into a generated MCP config overlay with bundleMcp: true. Current bundled behavior:

• claude-cli: generated strict MCP config file.
• google-gemini-cli: generated Gemini system settings file.

When bundle MCP is enabled, OpenClaw:

• spawns a loopback HTTP MCP server that exposes gateway tools to the CLI process, authenticated with a per-run context grant (OPENCLAW_MCP_TOKEN) active only for the current execution attempt;
• binds tool access to the Gateway-selected session, account, and channel context instead of trusting child-process headers;
• loads enabled bundle-MCP servers for the current workspace and merges them with any existing backend MCP config/settings shape;
• rewrites the launch config using the backend-owned integration mode from the owning plugin.

Restricted runs such as cron jobs with toolsAllow require an exact backend-owned translation. The bundled claude-cli backend disables Claude's native tools and user, project, and local customizations, including hooks, plugins, agents, skills, and CLAUDE.md. It then exposes every allowed OpenClaw tool through the grant-scoped MCP server. This keeps filesystem, process, exec, approval, and sandbox policy inside OpenClaw instead of widening authority to Claude's native tools or customization processes. The same MCP list is enforced in Claude's generated config and again by the Gateway on tool listing and execution. Before minting the grant, core rejects backend translations that name any MCP permission outside the original allowlist. Backends without an exact translation still fail closed.

If no MCP servers are enabled, OpenClaw still injects a strict config when a backend opts into bundle MCP, so background runs stay isolated.

Session-scoped bundled MCP runtimes are cached for reuse within a session, then reaped after 10 minutes of idle time. One-shot embedded runs such as auth probes, slug generation, and active-memory recall request cleanup at run end so stdio children and Streamable HTTP/SSE streams do not outlive the run.

For claude-cli, a compatible selected or ordered OpenClaw OAuth/token profile is forwarded to that Claude child. This makes per-agent profiles authoritative for the turn while preserving Claude's native host login when no compatible profile exists.

Reseed history cap

When a fresh CLI session is seeded from a prior OpenClaw transcript (for example after a session_expired retry), the rendered <conversation_history> block is capped to keep reseed prompts from exploding. The default is 12,288 characters (about 3,000 tokens).

Claude CLI backends scale this cap with the resolved Claude context window instead: larger context windows get a larger prior-history slice, up to a fixed ceiling; other CLI backends keep the conservative default. This cap only governs the reseed prompt's prior-history block.

Limitations

• OpenClaw does not inject tool calls into the CLI backend protocol. Backends only see gateway tools when they opt into bundleMcp: true.
• Streaming is backend-specific: some backends stream JSONL, others buffer until exit.
• Structured outputs depend on the CLI's own JSON format.

Troubleshooting

Related

• Gateway runbook
• Local models