netclaw model

Assign LLM models to roles: Main, Fallback, and Compaction. Run netclaw model for an interactive TUI, or use subcommands to script it.

You need at least one provider configured first. If you haven’t added one, see netclaw provider.

Usage

netclaw model                          # launch TUI
netclaw model <subcommand> [options]   # CLI mode

Model roles

Three roles, only Main is required:

Role	Purpose	When unset
Main	Primary model for all interactions	Required — cannot be cleared
Fallback	Automatic failover when Main is unavailable (rate limits, network errors, provider outages)	Falls back to Main
Compaction	Context summarization with a cheaper/faster model	Falls back to Main

Role names are case-insensitive.

Compaction runs automatically when a session’s context approaches the model’s token limit.

Model Manager TUI

netclaw model

Select a role to reassign it, or use the hotkeys:

Key	Action
↑ / ↓	Navigate roles
Enter	Assign model to selected role
D	Discover available models from a provider
C	Clear optional role (Fallback or Compaction)
Esc	Back / Quit (from role overview)
Ctrl+Q	Quit from any screen

Enter opens the assignment flow: pick a provider, discover its models, confirm. Discovery times out after 20 seconds and shows up to 30 results. If yours isn’t listed, pick “Enter model ID manually…” and type it in (e.g., qwen3:30b, llama3.2:latest).

Subcommands

model list

netclaw model list

Role         Provider             Model ID                       Context Window
Main         remote-gpu           qwen3:30b                      32,768 tokens
Fallback     remote-gpu           qwen3:8b                       (default)
Compaction   (not set)

Context window shows (default) unless you’ve set an explicit --context-window value.

This reads from config, not from the running daemon. With no models configured, it prompts you to run model set or open the TUI.

model set

netclaw model set <role> <provider> <model-id> [--context-window <tokens>]

Flag	Description	Default
--context-window <tokens>	Override context window size (positive integer)	Provider-detected

Use this when a local model doesn’t report its context window (discovery shows -), or to cap usage below the model’s actual maximum.

The provider must already exist in your config. If it doesn’t, the error lists your configured providers:

Error: Provider 'my-cloud' not found in configuration.
Configured providers: remote-gpu, my-anthropic

Shrinking Main’s context window prints a warning because existing sessions with longer histories may fail until compacted.

Restart the daemon for changes to take effect.

model discover

netclaw model discover <provider>

The provider must be reachable. This queries its API live:

Model ID                                 Context Window        Cost (in/out per 1M)
claude-opus-4-1                          200,000               $15.00 / $75.00
claude-sonnet-4                          200,000               $3.00 / $15.00
gpt-4-turbo                              128,000               $10.00 / $30.00
gpt-4o                                   128,000               $5.00 / $15.00

4 model(s) found.

Cost and context window columns show - when the provider doesn’t report them (common with Ollama and OpenAI-compatible endpoints).

model clear

netclaw model clear <role>

Clears Fallback or Compaction. Cannot clear Main:

Error: Cannot clear the main model role. Use `netclaw model set main` to change it instead.

Cleared roles are removed from the config file entirely.

Examples

# Set main model on a remote Ollama server
netclaw model set main remote-gpu qwen3:30b --context-window 32768

# Add a smaller fallback model on the same provider
netclaw model set fallback remote-gpu qwen3:8b

# Use a cloud model for compaction
netclaw model set compaction my-anthropic claude-sonnet-4

# See what models an Ollama server has available
netclaw model discover my-ollama

# Remove the fallback assignment
netclaw model clear fallback

Configuration

Assignments live in ~/.netclaw/config/netclaw.json under the Models key:

{
  "Models": {
    "Main": {
      "Provider": "remote-gpu",
      "ModelId": "qwen3:30b",
      "ContextWindow": 32768
    },
    "Fallback": {
      "Provider": "remote-gpu",
      "ModelId": "qwen3:8b",
      "ContextWindow": 32768
    }
  }
}

Restart the daemon afterward.

Exit codes

0 on success, 1 on invalid arguments, unknown provider, or validation failure.

What’s next

After setting your models, run netclaw status to confirm the daemon picked them up.

Related commands

• netclaw provider — add providers before assigning models
• netclaw status — see which model the daemon is actually using
• netclaw doctor — checks model config validity
• netclaw init — initial model setup during onboarding

Resources

• Ollama model library — browse models for local inference
• Anthropic models — Claude specs, pricing, context windows
• OpenRouter catalog — compare across providers
• OpenAI models — GPT specs, pricing, context windows