openclaw/docs/providers/baseten.md

summary, title, read_when

summary	title	read_when
Baseten setup for Inkling and hosted Model APIs	Baseten	You want to run Thinking Machines Lab's Inkling in OpenClaw You want one OpenAI-compatible API for Baseten's hosted models

Baseten Model APIs provide hosted, OpenAI-compatible access to frontier models. The official external plugin uses authenticated discovery, so OpenClaw follows the complete model set enabled for your Baseten account. Its offline fallback contains every Model API available when this OpenClaw release was built.

Property	Value
Provider id	baseten
Plugin	official external package (@openclaw/baseten-provider)
Auth env var	BASETEN_API_KEY
Onboarding flag	--auth-choice baseten-api-key
Direct CLI flag	--baseten-api-key <key>
API	OpenAI-compatible (openai-completions)
Base URL	https://inference.baseten.co/v1
Default model	baseten/thinkingmachines/inkling

Install plugin

openclaw plugins install @openclaw/baseten-provider
openclaw gateway restart

Getting started

Baseten's Basic plan has no monthly platform fee; Model API calls are usage-priced. Create a key in [Baseten API key settings](https://app.baseten.co/settings/api_keys) and check current rates on the [pricing page](https://www.baseten.co/pricing).

openclaw onboard --auth-choice baseten-api-key

openclaw onboard --non-interactive \
  --auth-choice baseten-api-key \
  --baseten-api-key "$BASETEN_API_KEY"

export BASETEN_API_KEY=...

</CodeGroup>

```bash openclaw models list --provider baseten ```

With usable auth, the plugin requests `GET /v1/models` and lists every model returned for the account. Without auth, it stays offline and uses the bundled fallback.

Inkling

Thinking Machines Lab's Inkling is the default model. In OpenClaw it supports text and image input, tool calling, structured tool schemas, configurable reasoning effort, a 1.048M-token context window, and up to 32k output tokens:

{
  agents: {
    defaults: {
      model: { primary: "baseten/thinkingmachines/inkling" },
    },
  },
}

Use /model baseten/thinkingmachines/inkling -s to switch the current session.

Bundled fallback catalog

The authenticated live catalog is authoritative. These rows keep setup and model selection useful before discovery succeeds:

Model ref	Input	Context	Max output
baseten/deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V4-Pro	text	262k	262k
baseten/zai-org/GLM-4.7	text	200k	200k
baseten/zai-org/GLM-5	text	202k	202k
baseten/zai-org/GLM-5.1	text	202k	202k
baseten/zai-org/GLM-5.2	text	524k	262k
baseten/zai-org/GLM-5.2-Fast	text	524k	262k
baseten/thinkingmachines/inkling	text, image	1.048M	32k
baseten/moonshotai/Kimi-K2.5	text, image	262k	262k
baseten/moonshotai/Kimi-K2.6	text, image	262k	262k
baseten/moonshotai/Kimi-K2.7-Code	text, image	262k	262k
baseten/nvidia/Nemotron-120B-A12B	text	202k	202k
baseten/nvidia/NVIDIA-Nemotron-3-Ultra-550B-A55B	text	202k	202k
baseten/openai/gpt-oss-120b	text	128k	128k

All bundled models support tool calling and reasoning. OpenClaw maps its thinking levels to models with native reasoning_effort. Baseten's opt-in GLM, Kimi, and Nemotron models default to thinking off; most expose a binary off/on control, while GLM 5.2 exposes off, high, and max. OpenClaw sends these choices through Baseten's chat_template_args.enable_thinking control and, for GLM 5.2, the validated top-level reasoning_effort parameter.

Baseten can add, remove, or change Model APIs independently of OpenClaw releases. The plugin refreshes model ids, context limits, output limits, and input, cached-input, and output pricing from the authenticated API while retaining model-specific OpenClaw transport policy.

Manual config

Most setups only need the API key. To pin the provider explicitly:

{
  env: { BASETEN_API_KEY: "..." },
  agents: {
    defaults: {
      model: { primary: "baseten/thinkingmachines/inkling" },
    },
  },
  models: {
    mode: "merge",
    providers: {
      baseten: {
        baseUrl: "https://inference.baseten.co/v1",
        apiKey: "${BASETEN_API_KEY}",
        api: "openai-completions",
        models: [
          {
            id: "thinkingmachines/inkling",
            name: "Inkling",
            reasoning: true,
            input: ["text", "image"],
            contextWindow: 1048000,
            maxTokens: 32000,
          },
        ],
      },
    },
  },
}

If the Gateway runs as a daemon (launchd, systemd, Docker), make sure `BASETEN_API_KEY` is available to that process. A key exported only in an interactive shell is not visible to an already-running managed service.

Related

Choosing providers, model refs, and failover behavior. Select OpenClaw reasoning effort levels. List, inspect, and select discovered models. Auth profiles and model-selection troubleshooting.