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Environment Variables

OpenClaw reads these environment variables. They override corresponding config.yml settings.

LLM API Keys​

VariableDescription
ANTHROPIC_API_KEYAnthropic API key for Claude models
OPENAI_API_KEYOpenAI API key for GPT models
XAI_API_KEYxAI API key for Grok models

Gateway​

VariableDefaultDescription
OPENCLAW_PORT18789Gateway WebSocket port
OPENCLAW_HOST127.0.0.1Gateway bind address
OPENCLAW_AUTH_TOKEN—Gateway authentication token
OPENCLAW_LOG_LEVELinfoLog verbosity: debug, info, warn, error

Paths​

VariableDefaultDescription
OPENCLAW_HOME~/.openclawBase directory for all OpenClaw data
OPENCLAW_CONFIG~/.openclaw/config.ymlConfig file path
OPENCLAW_MEMORY_PATH~/.openclaw/memoryMemory directory
OPENCLAW_SKILLS_PATH~/.openclaw/skillsSkills directory

Brain​

VariableDefaultDescription
OPENCLAW_PROVIDERanthropicLLM provider
OPENCLAW_MODELclaude-opus-4-6Model identifier
OPENCLAW_TEMPERATURE0.7Response temperature
OPENCLAW_MAX_TOKENS4096Max response tokens

Heartbeat​

VariableDefaultDescription
OPENCLAW_HEARTBEAT_ENABLEDtrueEnable heartbeat
OPENCLAW_HEARTBEAT_INTERVAL1800Seconds between heartbeats

Local Models​

VariableDefaultDescription
OPENCLAW_LOCAL_ENDPOINT—Local model API endpoint
OPENCLAW_LOCAL_MODEL—Local model name
OLLAMA_HOSThttp://localhost:11434Ollama server URL

Example: Docker Compose​

docker-compose.yml
services:
  openclaw:
    image: openclaw/openclaw:latest
    environment:
      - ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=${ANTHROPIC_API_KEY}
      - OPENCLAW_HOST=0.0.0.0  # Only within Docker network
      - OPENCLAW_LOG_LEVEL=debug
    ports:
      - "127.0.0.1:18789:18789"  # Bind to localhost on host
    volumes:
      - openclaw-data:/root/.openclaw

See Also​