On a Hermes-edition ClawBox, the provider panel drives Hermes’ own configuration. There is no separate ClawBox copy of your provider settings: what you choose here is what Hermes uses, in chat, in Telegram and for the agent’s own work. You reach it in two places, and they are the same panel:
  • during first-boot setup, at the AI provider step;
  • afterwards, in Settings → AI Provider, headed Hermes models.

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Providers in the panel

Sign in

Anthropic (Claude) · OpenAI (Codex) · GitHub Copilot · Nous Portal

Paste an API key

OpenRouter · Anthropic · Google Gemini · z.ai / GLM · Kimi
Anthropic appears in both lists — sign in with your account, or paste an API key, whichever suits you. ClawBox AI sits above the rest as its own row. It works on this edition: it is wired into Hermes as a custom provider, so it behaves like any other provider once selected. See Subscriptions for what each plan includes.
The panel is a deliberate shortlist, not the whole of what Hermes supports. Hermes knows a much longer provider registry; anything not listed here stays reachable from the Hermes dashboard on the desktop. Configure it there and it shows up in the ClawBox panel and chat header afterwards.

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Connecting a provider

1

Pick the provider

Select its row. The panel loads the models that provider offers.
2

Sign in, or paste a key

For a sign-in provider, use Sign in ↗. That opens Hermes’ own authentication page in a new tab — the flow is Hermes’, not a ClawBox imitation of it. Finish there and come back; the panel notices and refreshes.For a key provider, paste the key into the API key field. The key is stored by Hermes on the device and is never displayed back to you.
3

Choose a default model

Pick from Default model. The list is what that provider actually offers on your account, so it is short until you have signed in or added a key.
4

Save

Save model & provider. The key, if you entered one, is stored first — it is what unlocks the model list.
Switching provider always resets the model to that provider’s default. This is deliberate: model identifiers are not portable between providers — OpenRouter spells a model one way and the vendor’s own API spells it another — so carrying the old name across would produce a device configured with a model its provider has never heard of.
If a provider has no usable model yet — not signed in, or no key — saving is refused with a message saying so rather than leaving the device pointed at something that cannot answer.

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The on-device model

A Hermes ClawBox can also run a model locally, with nothing leaving the box. It is configured separately, in Settings → Local AI, because it works the same way on both editions.
  • It appears in the provider and chat pickers as Gemma 4 (on-device).
  • It runs with on-demand standby: the model wakes on the first request and sleeps again afterwards to give the RAM back. The first message after a quiet period is therefore slower than the ones that follow.
  • It has no reasoning-effort control — the backend does not take one, so the chat header hides the dial while it is selected.
  • Turning it on makes it available; it does not take over. Making it your default is a separate, explicit choice.
ClawBox Connect (Jetson Orin Nano, 8 GB) runs a small model comfortably and is best paired with a cloud provider for heavier work. See Hardware.

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Reasoning effort

Hermes takes a reasoning level per request. In the ClawBox chat header the brain icon offers eight: None, Minimal, Low, Medium, High, X-High, Max, Ultra. That control is a per-conversation override — it does not rewrite the device default. Two details worth knowing:
  • Not every provider accepts every level. Choosing a provider that tops out lower clamps your selection down to the nearest level it supports rather than failing.
  • Providers with no reasoning dial at all — the on-device model among them — hide the control entirely.

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Changing provider later

Any time, from Settings → AI Provider. Nothing needs restarting and no re-setup is involved; the next message uses the new provider.