OpenClaw Baidu Integration: Connect to Baidu AI Services

Building OpenClaw agents for Chinese-language users or Chinese mainland deployments requires Baidu service integrations. Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google services have inconsistent or blocked access in mainland China — Baidu's alternatives are the practical solution.

Baidu Services Overview

Baidu offers three services relevant to OpenClaw deployments: Ernie Bot (AI language model), Baidu Search (web search with Chinese-language optimization), and Baidu Cloud Object Storage (BOS) for file operations.

For OpenClaw agents targeting Chinese-language users, Ernie Bot provides superior Chinese-language generation quality compared to models trained primarily on English data.

API Setup

Create a Baidu AI Cloud account at console.bce.baidu.com. Navigate to the AI platform section to create an Ernie Bot application and generate your API key and secret. For Baidu Search, create a separate Custom Search application in the Baidu search platform.

OpenClaw Configuration

Configure Baidu as a model provider in openclaw.yaml. OpenClaw's multi-model routing allows you to use Baidu Ernie Bot for Chinese-language queries and fall back to other providers for other languages based on detected language.

# Check your OpenClaw version
openclaw --version

# Update to latest
pip install --upgrade openclaw

# View changelog (if docs are installed)
openclaw docs changelog

Common Mistakes

• Not reading the changelog before upgrading — minor versions occasionally have config-level changes. A 2-minute changelog read saves hours of debugging.
• Treating community forks as equals to core — forks lag in security patches and may have diverged from the core API. Know what you're running.
• Not bookmarking the official docs — docs.openclaw.dev is the authoritative reference. Community guides (including this one) may be outdated; official docs are updated with each release.
• Missing Discord announcements — the #releases channel announces breaking changes before they ship, giving you time to prepare. Follow it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where is the best place to get help with this topic?
The OpenClaw Discord server (#help channel) and r/openclaw on Reddit are the primary community support channels. GitHub Discussions is best for feature requests.

Is this officially supported by the OpenClaw team?
Core features are officially maintained. Community forks, third-party integrations, and ClaWHub skills vary in support level — check each project's README for maintainer status.

How often is this updated?
OpenClaw follows semantic versioning with minor releases every 4-6 weeks. Major releases are announced on GitHub, Discord, and the official blog.

Can I contribute to this?
Yes. OpenClaw is open-source and welcomes contributions. Check CONTRIBUTING.md in the GitHub repo for the process. Community skills can be submitted to ClaWHub via a pull request.

Where can I find the latest version information?
The GitHub releases page and the OpenClaw changelog at docs.openclaw.dev are the authoritative sources for version information.

Is there a community forum besides Reddit and Discord?
GitHub Discussions is the official forum for longer-form technical discussions. Some international communities also maintain Telegram and WeChat groups.