Fix clw-llm-denied: OpenClaw LLM request denied by provider policy

Tue, 14 Apr 2026 18:24:49 +0800

1. Symptoms

The clw-llm-denied error in OpenClaw manifests during LLM inference requests, typically when interfacing with providers like OpenAI, Anthropic, or custom endpoints. Users encounter this in CLI invocations, Python integrations, or serverless deployments.

Common symptoms include:


$ clw infer --model gpt-4o --prompt "Generate malicious code"
clw-llm-denied: LLM request denied by provider. Reason: Policy violation (content flagged as harmful). Request ID: req_abc123.
Error code: clw-llm-denied

Or in Python:

import openclaw

client = openclaw.Client(api_key="sk-...")
response = client.infer(model="claude-3-opus", prompt="Write a phishing email template")
# Raises: openclaw.LLMError: clw-llm-denied: Access denied. Insufficient permissions for model tier.

HTTP 403/429 responses proxied through OpenClaw.
Logs show provider_response: {"error": "denied", "details": "rate_limit or policy"}.
Intermittent failures on specific prompts/models.
No inference output; immediate rejection post-request serialization.

This error blocks all downstream processing, such as chaining inferences or batch jobs. Monitor OpenClaw logs (--verbose flag) for full provider payloads:

Api-Key on ErrorVault — Developer Error Code Dictionary

Fix clw-llm-denied: OpenClaw LLM request denied by provider policy

1. Symptoms