OpenClaw Model Routing: Use Cheap Models for 90% of Tasks

ByL.B. Kaelin

Your AI agent is burning cash. Every simple task, like summarizing an email or checking a schedule, costs the same as a complex reasoning job. You’re paying for a race car to run errands.

This is the default. Most platforms use one model for everything. Your monthly bill is a surprise, and you start limiting what your agent can do. That defeats the whole point.

OpenClaw model routing | openclaw smart routing, openclaw model fallback fixes this. It’s a traffic cop for your AI tasks. It sends easy jobs to cheap, fast models and reserves the expensive, powerful models for the hard stuff.

You keep performance where it matters and slash costs where it doesn’t. Your agent becomes sustainable. You stop worrying about the bill and start telling it to do more.

By the end of this, you’ll have a working routing setup. Your Claw will automatically use a model like GPT-4o-mini for 90% of its work and only call on GPT-4o or Claude 3.5 Sonnet when it truly needs to. You’ll cut your inference costs by 60-80% without losing capability.

What You Need Before Starting

Think of this like prepping a kitchen. You need the right tools and ingredients on the counter before you start cooking a complex meal. Missing one item stops everything.

  • A Running OpenClaw Agent: This is your chef. The routing logic is a set of instructions you give it. If your Claw isn’t awake and listening, you’re just talking to an empty kitchen.
  • Access to Your OpenClaw Project Directory: This is the recipe book. We’ll be editing configuration files. You need to know where they live, typically where you first ran the docker compose up command.
  • API Keys for Multiple Models: Routing is pointless if you only have one key. You need at least two: one for a cheap model (like OpenAI’s GPT-4o-mini) and one for a powerful model (like GPT-4o, Claude 3.5 Sonnet, or Gemini 1.5 Pro). This is like having both a microwave and a professional oven.
  • Basic Comfort with a Terminal and a Text Editor: You’ll run a couple of commands and edit a YAML file. If you’ve set up OpenClaw before, you’ve already done this. It’s not harder than that.

Setting Up Your Environment

We’re going to check your tools and lay out your ingredients. This takes five minutes if everything is ready. If something is missing, we’ll fix it now so the routing setup goes smoothly.

1. Wake Up Your Claw and Find Your Kitchen

First, ensure your agent is online. Then, navigate to your project folder. All your config files live here.

You are my OpenClaw agent. Do the following:
1. Check if the OpenClaw services are running. Run: docker ps --filter "name=openclaw"
2. If the core services aren't running, start them. Navigate to the OpenClaw project directory and run: docker compose up -d
3. Once services are up, tell me the full absolute path to the current project directory. Run: pwd
4. Confirm you are ready by saying "Claw is online in [DIRECTORY_PATH]".

Your agent will report back that the services are running and give you the directory path. Save that path. You’ll need it for the next step.

Manual Fallback: Open a terminal, cd into your OpenClaw folder (e.g., cd ~/projects/openclaw), and run docker compose up -d. Then run pwd to get the path.

2. Locate the Routing Configuration File

OpenClaw uses a file called agent_config.yaml to control model behavior. We’re going to edit it. Let’s first verify it exists and see its current state.

You are my OpenClaw agent. Do the following:
1. From the OpenClaw project directory, list the main config file. Run: ls -la agent_config.yaml
2. Show me the first 20 lines of the file so I can see its structure. Run: head -20 agent_config.yaml
3. Report back the file size and confirm it's a valid YAML file.

You should see a YAML file with sections like llm and tools. If the agent says the file doesn’t exist, stop. You may be in the wrong directory. Go back to Step 1.

3. Verify Your API Keys Are Accessible

The Claw needs your keys to call the AI models. They are usually stored in a .env file. We’ll check for the common ones without exposing the actual key values.

You are my OpenClaw agent. Do the following:
1. Check if a .env file exists in the project root. Run: ls -la .env
2. If it exists, check for the presence of key environment variables. Run: grep -E "^(OPENAI_API_KEY|ANTHROPIC_API_KEY|GOOGLE_API_KEY)=" .env | head -5
3. Report which API key variables are found (e.g., OPENAI_API_KEY is set). Do NOT print the key values themselves.

You need to see at least OPENAI_API_KEY listed. For smart routing, seeing two different keys (like OPENAI_API_KEY and ANTHROPIC_API_KEY) is ideal. If a key is missing, you’ll need to add it to the .env file before proceeding.

If a key is missing: Open the .env file in your project root with a text editor. Add a new line like ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=your_key_here. Save the file, then restart your Claw services with docker compose restart.

Your environment is now ready. Your Claw is online, you know where the config file is, and your API keys are in place. The next step is where the magic happens: writing the routing rules.

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