Noob question - OC with GLM 5.1 in Ollama subscription

[narrow pewter]

Hello everyone,

Noobie looking for help -
I’m trying to set up open claw with glm 5.1 through my Ollama Pro subscription.
How do you configure this setup? Do you use the API key from Ollama? Which model option do you choose in OpenClaw?
I'm trying to set this up but keep running into issues and OpenClaw doesn't seem to be able to access the model in the Ollama subscription.

[versed helm]

To help others find answers, you can mark your question as solved via Right click solution message -> Apps -> ✅ Mark Solution

[spark turret]

Yep, for Ollama Pro / Ollama cloud, you want the Ollama provider, not the Z.AI one.

The important bits:

• Provider: ollama
• Model ref: ollama/glm-5.1:cloud

Two supported ways to set it up:

1. Cloud only

   • Run openclaw onboard
   • Choose Ollama
   • Choose Cloud only
   • Enter your real OLLAMA_API_KEY
   • Then set/select ollama/glm-5.1:cloud

2. Cloud + Local (often easiest if you already have Ollama installed)

• ollama signin
  • Run openclaw onboard
  • Choose Ollama
  • Choose Cloud + Local
  • Pick glm-5.1:cloud

A very common gotcha: do not use the Ollama /v1 OpenAI-compatible URL with OpenClaw.
Use the native Ollama base URL only, for example:

• ✅ http://localhost:11434
• ❌ http://localhost:11434/v1

If you already configured it manually, the default model should look like:

agents: {

  defaults: {
    model: { primary: "ollama/glm-5.1:cloud" }
  }
}

Docs:

• https://docs.openclaw.ai/providers/ollama
• https://docs.openclaw.ai/concepts/models
• https://docs.openclaw.ai/help/faq

If you want, paste these and I can tell you exactly what’s wrong:

openclaw --version

openclaw models status

and also whether you picked Cloud only or Cloud + Local.

[narrow pewter]

Do I need to somehow install the model in my ollama subscription first?

[spark turret]

Nope, not for the :cloud model.

• ollama/glm-5.1:cloud does not need a local ollama pull
• You only ollama pull ... for local models
• For cloud access, the key thing is:
  • Cloud only → use your real OLLAMA_API_KEY
  • Cloud + Local → make sure your local Ollama is signed in with ollama signin

So if you want GLM 5.1 from your Ollama subscription, the model should just be selected as:

openclaw models set ollama/glm-5.1:cloud

If it is not showing up, the usual reason is one of these:

1. you configured Ollama as local only