cohere.md

Cohere

Connect GoClaw to Cohere's Command models using their OpenAI-compatible API.

Overview

Cohere offers an OpenAI-compatible endpoint, which means GoClaw's standard OpenAIProvider handles all communication — streaming, tool calls, and usage tracking work out of the box. Cohere's Command R and Command R+ models are particularly strong at retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) and tool use.

Setup

Add your Cohere API key to config.json:

{
  "providers": {
    "cohere": {
      "api_key": "$COHERE_API_KEY"
    }
  },
  "agents": {
    "defaults": {
      "provider": "cohere",
      "model": "command-r-plus"
    }
  }
}

Store your key in .env.local:

COHERE_API_KEY=your-cohere-api-key

The default API base is https://api.cohere.com/compatibility/v1. GoClaw sets this automatically when you configure the cohere provider.

Models

Model	Notes
command-r-plus	Best accuracy, best for complex tasks and RAG
command-r	Balanced performance and cost
command-light	Fastest and cheapest, good for simple tasks

Examples

Minimal config:

{
  "providers": {
    "cohere": {
      "api_key": "$COHERE_API_KEY"
    }
  },
  "agents": {
    "defaults": {
      "provider": "cohere",
      "model": "command-r-plus",
      "max_tokens": 4096
    }
  }
}

Custom API base (if you proxy Cohere):

{
  "providers": {
    "cohere": {
      "api_key": "$COHERE_API_KEY",
      "api_base": "https://your-proxy.example.com/cohere/v1"
    }
  }
}

Common Issues

Problem	Cause	Fix
401 Unauthorized	Missing or invalid API key	Check COHERE_API_KEY in .env.local
model not found	Wrong model ID	Use exact model IDs from Cohere docs
Tool calls return errors	Schema issues	Cohere's tool format is OpenAI-compatible; verify your tool parameter schemas
Slow responses	Large context window	Command R models are slower on long contexts; consider command-light for speed

What's Next

• Perplexity — search-augmented AI via OpenAI-compatible API
• Custom Provider — connect any OpenAI-compatible API