Gateway

Route requests to plugins through the v1 gateway with support for Stripe, MPP, and session-based payments.

Gateway

The v1 gateway routes incoming requests to registered plugins. It supports three payment methods — Stripe (existing), MPP (Machine Payments Protocol) via the Tempo blockchain, and session-based billing for low-latency, off-chain per-call payments.

Base URL

POST /api/v1/gateway

Request

Headers

Header	Type	Required	Description
Content-Type	string	Yes	Must be application/json
X-Plugin-Id	string	No	Plugin to route the request to. Overrides the plugin field in the body.
X-Payment-Method	string	No	Payment method to use: stripe, mpp, or session. Defaults to stripe.
Authorization	string	No	For MPP payments, use Payment <credential>. For session auth, handled via cookies.
X-Session-Id	string	No	Active session ID for session-based billing. Required when X-Payment-Method is session.
X-Wallet-Address	string	No	Wallet address that owns the session (0x-prefixed). Required when X-Payment-Method is session.
Accept	string	No	Set to text/event-stream for streaming responses (where supported).

Body

{
  "plugin": "generate-text",
  "messages": [{ "role": "user", "content": "Hello" }]
}

Field	Type	Required	Description
plugin	string	No	Plugin ID to route to. The X-Plugin-Id header takes priority if both are provided. Defaults to generate-text.

Additional body fields are forwarded to the target plugin.

Plugins

The gateway routes to the following plugins:

Plugin ID	Name	Description	Auth required	Streaming
agent	Agent	Agent orchestrator for multi-step tasks	Yes	Yes
generate-text	Text Generation	LLM text generation	Yes	Yes
tts	Text-to-Speech	Speech synthesis	Yes	No
stt	Speech-to-Text	Speech transcription	Yes	No

generate-text is the default plugin when no plugin ID is specified.

Authentication

Protected plugins require either a valid session (cookie-based via NextAuth), a verified MPP payment credential, or an active payment session. If you pay with MPP or use session-based billing, cookie-based authentication is not required.

Payment flow

The gateway supports three payment methods per request:

1. Stripe — Default. Requires an active subscription or credits. See Stripe integration.
2. MPP — Crypto-native payments on the Tempo blockchain. See MPP payments.
3. Session — Off-chain, per-call billing using a pre-funded payment session. See MPP payments — sessions and the wallet sessions API.

The server selects the payment method using the following priority:

1. X-Payment-Method header (session, mpp, or stripe)
2. Presence of an Authorization: Payment header (implies mpp)
3. Default: stripe

MPP 402 challenge

When an MPP request has no valid credential, the gateway returns 402 Payment Required with pricing information for both payment methods:

{
  "error": "payment_required",
  "message": "Payment required for agent. Choose payment method: Stripe or Tempo MPP.",
  "mpp": {
    "scheme": "Payment",
    "amount": "0.05",
    "currency": "0x20c0000000000000000000000000000000000000",
    "recipient": "0xd8fd0e1dce89beaab924ac68098ddb17613db56f",
    "description": "Agent orchestrator request",
    "nonce": "a1b2c3d4e5f6...",
    "expiresAt": 1742472000000
  },
  "stripe": {
    "checkoutUrl": "/api/v1/payments/stripe/create?plugin=agent",
    "amount": "0.05",
    "currency": "usd"
  }
}

The WWW-Authenticate header is also set:

Payment amount="0.05", currency="0x20c0000000000000000000000000000000000000", recipient="0xd8fd0e1dce89beaab924ac68098ddb17613db56f"

Session-based billing

When X-Payment-Method is session, the gateway auto-debits the caller’s payment session using an off-chain voucher. This avoids the 402 challenge/response round-trip and settles each call in sub-100ms.

To use session-based billing:

1. Open a payment session via POST /api/wallet/sessions. See wallet sessions.
2. Include X-Session-Id and X-Wallet-Address headers on every gateway request.
3. The gateway looks up the session, verifies the balance covers the plugin price, and debits the session automatically.
4. The response includes a Payment-Receipt header with the voucher reference and an X-Session-Remaining header with the updated balance.

If the session is missing, expired, or has insufficient balance, the gateway returns 402 with a descriptive error. See error responses for the full list of session-related error codes.

Response

Success (200)

{
  "plugin": "generate-text",
  "message": "Request processed by generate-text plugin",
  "timestamp": "2026-03-20T03:33:15.000Z",
  "payment": {
    "method": "stripe",
    "receipt": null
  }
}

When paid via MPP, the response includes a Payment-Receipt header and the payment.receipt field contains the transaction hash. When paid via a session, the payment.receipt field contains the voucher reference (formatted as session:<sessionId>:<nonce>).

Response headers

Header	Description
x-plugin-id	The plugin that handled the request
Payment-Receipt	Payment receipt. For MPP: transaction hash. For sessions: voucher reference (session:<sessionId>:<nonce>). Only present for MPP or session-paid requests.
X-Session-Remaining	Remaining session balance in USD after the debit. Only present for session-paid requests.

Error responses

Status	Error code	Description
400	unknown_plugin	No pricing configured for the requested plugin (session billing only)
401	Unauthorized	Authentication required for a protected plugin and no valid session, MPP credential, or payment session
402	payment_required	MPP payment required. Response includes challenge and pricing.
402	session_required	Session billing was requested but X-Session-Id or X-Wallet-Address header is missing
402	session_invalid	No active session found for the provided session ID and wallet address
402	insufficient_balance	Session balance is too low to cover the plugin price. Response includes session.remaining and session.cost.
402	voucher_failed	The off-chain voucher could not be processed (e.g., concurrent debit race)
500	internal	Internal server error
502	no_plugin	No plugin registered for the given ID

Per-agent gateway authentication

Each agent container receives a unique gateway auth token at provisioning time. The internal gateway authenticates requests using token-based auth on port 18789.

Field	Description
gateway.auth.mode	token
gateway.auth.token	Unique hex token auto-generated per container. Provisioning generates a 48-character token (24 bytes of entropy). The container entrypoint generates a 32-character token (16 bytes) if no token is passed via the OPENCLAW_GATEWAY_TOKEN environment variable.
gateway.port	18789

The container entrypoint writes its own minimal configuration to $HOME/.openclaw/openclaw.json using a slightly different schema (auth.method at the top level instead of gateway.auth.mode). The provisioning config written by the backend uses the gateway.auth.mode path. When the entrypoint runs, it overwrites the provisioning config with its own minimal skeleton. To preserve the full provisioning config, pass the gateway token via the OPENCLAW_GATEWAY_TOKEN environment variable so the entrypoint uses the same token.

Agent container configuration

When an agent is provisioned, the backend generates an OpenClaw configuration with the following parameters. These values are set automatically and cannot be overridden by the caller.

Container environment variables

The following environment variables are set on every agent container at launch:

Variable	Default	Description
HOME	/home/node	Home directory for the node user that the official OpenClaw image runs as
TERM	xterm-256color	Terminal type
NODE_COMPILE_CACHE	/var/tmp/openclaw-compile-cache	Directory for the Node.js compile cache. Speeds up cold starts by caching compiled bytecode across process restarts.
OPENCLAW_NO_RESPAWN	1	When set to 1, prevents the OpenClaw process from automatically respawning after exit. Container-level restart policies (Docker --restart or orchestrator health checks) handle process recovery instead.
OPENCLAW_GATEWAY_TOKEN	Auto-generated	Gateway authentication token. When not set, the entrypoint generates a 32-character hex token. See per-agent gateway authentication.
OPENCLAW_GATEWAY_PORT	18789	Port the gateway listens on inside the container
AGENTBOT_USER_ID	Per-user	Owner user ID passed at provisioning time
AGENTBOT_PLAN	solo	Subscription plan tier (solo, collective, label, or network)
AGENTBOT_MODE	home	Installation mode (home for self-hosted, link for existing OpenClaw)
AGENTBOT_API_KEY	Per-user	API key for authenticating with the Agentbot platform

Gateway settings

Parameter	Value	Description
gateway.bind	loopback	Bind address for the gateway. The container entrypoint overrides this to loopback via the --bind loopback CLI flag, so the gateway only listens on 127.0.0.1. Docker port mapping forwards external traffic to the loopback address inside the container. The provisioning config sets lan but the entrypoint takes precedence at runtime.
gateway.port	18789	Internal gateway port
gateway.auth.mode	token	Authentication mode
gateway.auth.rateLimit.maxAttempts	10	Maximum authentication attempts before lockout
gateway.auth.rateLimit.windowMs	60000	Rate limit window in milliseconds (1 minute)
gateway.auth.rateLimit.lockoutMs	300000	Lockout duration in milliseconds (5 minutes)
gateway.auth.rateLimit.exemptLoopback	true	Exempt loopback addresses from rate limiting
gateway.auth.allowTailscale	true	Allow Tailscale network connections
gateway.controlUi.enabled	true	Gateway control UI is enabled in containers.

Tool settings

Parameter	Value	Description
tools.profile	messaging or coding	messaging for solo plan, coding for all other plans
tools.deny	["browser", "canvas"]	Tools disabled in container environments
tools.exec.allowedCommands	Array of whitelisted commands	Commands the agent is permitted to execute (includes git, node, npm, python3, curl, ls, cat, grep, find, wget, mkdir, cp, mv, rm, echo, date, whoami, chmod, chown, touch, head, tail, wc, sort, uniq, awk, sed, tar, zip, unzip, docker, ps, df, du)
tools.exec.allowedPaths	["~/.openclaw/workspace", "/tmp", "/home/node"]	Filesystem paths the agent can access. The official OpenClaw image runs as the node user (/home/node). Configuration is stored at /home/node/.openclaw/openclaw.json.
tools.exec.denyPaths	["/etc/shadow", "/etc/passwd", "/proc", "/sys"]	Filesystem paths the agent is blocked from accessing
tools.web.maxChars	50000	Maximum characters returned from web tool requests
tools.loopDetection.maxIterations	20	Maximum loop iterations before the agent is interrupted
tools.loopDetection.windowMinutes	5	Time window for loop detection

Session settings

Parameter	Value	Description
session.maxTokens	100000	Maximum tokens per session
session.compaction.strategy	auto	Automatic context compaction strategy
session.compaction.triggerAtPercent	80	Compaction triggers when token usage reaches this percentage

Agent defaults

Parameter	Value	Description
agents.defaults.workspace	~/.openclaw/workspace	Default workspace directory
agents.defaults.imageMaxDimensionPx	1200	Maximum image dimension in pixels (optimizes vision token usage)
agents.defaults.userTimezone	Europe/London	Default timezone (overridden by signup timezone when available)
agents.defaults.timeFormat	24h	Time format
agents.defaults.compaction.maxMessages	200	Maximum messages before compaction
agents.defaults.compaction.keepLastN	20	Number of recent messages preserved after compaction
agents.defaults.heartbeat.every	30m	Self-monitoring heartbeat interval
agents.defaults.skipBootstrap	false	Whether to skip the bootstrap phase
agents.defaults.bootstrapMaxChars	4000	Maximum characters for bootstrap content

Health monitoring

The gateway monitors channel health for each agent container. When a channel becomes unresponsive, the gateway can automatically restart it.

Parameter	Value	Description
channelHealthCheckMinutes	5	Interval between health checks for each channel
channelStaleEventThresholdMinutes	30	Channel is considered stale if no events are received within this window
channelMaxRestartsPerHour	10	Maximum number of automatic channel restarts per hour

CORS

The gateway supports CORS preflight via OPTIONS /api/v1/gateway. Allowed methods are POST and OPTIONS. The Authorization, Content-Type, X-Plugin-Id, X-Payment-Method, X-Session-Id, and X-Wallet-Address headers are permitted.

Rate limits

Endpoint	Limit
/api/v1/gateway	100/min

Examples

Route a request to the agent plugin (Stripe)

curl -X POST https://agentbot.raveculture.xyz/api/v1/gateway \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "X-Plugin-Id: agent" \
  -H "Cookie: next-auth.session-token=YOUR_SESSION" \
  -d '{"messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "Summarize my tasks"}]}'

Route a request with MPP payment

curl -X POST https://agentbot.raveculture.xyz/api/v1/gateway \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "X-Plugin-Id: generate-text" \
  -H "Authorization: Payment {\"scheme\":\"Payment\",\"transaction\":\"0x76...\",\"challengeNonce\":\"abc123\"}" \
  -d '{"messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "Hello"}]}'

Route a request with session-based billing

curl -X POST https://agentbot.raveculture.xyz/api/v1/gateway \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "X-Plugin-Id: agent" \
  -H "X-Payment-Method: session" \
  -H "X-Session-Id: ses_a1b2c3d4e5f6..." \
  -H "X-Wallet-Address: 0xd8fd0e1dce89beaab924ac68098ddb17613db56f" \
  -d '{"messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "Summarize my tasks"}]}'

The response includes the remaining session balance:

Payment-Receipt: session:ses_a1b2c3d4e5f6...:v_abc123def456
X-Session-Remaining: 9.95