Bug Report: normalizeProviderId breaks provider-namespaced models like kimi-coding/k2p5

Component: Core model resolution (src/agents/provider-id.ts) Severity: Medium — breaks model selection for users with custom provider namespaces Affected versions: 2026.4.26 (and likely earlier)

Summary

normalizeProviderId() in src/agents/provider-id.ts collapses the distinct provider ID kimi-coding into kimi. When a user configures a model under the kimi-coding provider namespace (e.g. kimi-coding/k2p5), the normalization causes the resolver to look for a kimi/k2p5 model entry instead. Because that entry does not exist, the system falls back to kimi-coding/k2p5 with a confusing Fallback: kimi-coding/k2p5 (selected model unavailable) message. New sessions are also initialized with the wrong kimi/k2p5 label.

Steps to Reproduce

1. In openclaw.json, add a provider entry under the key kimi-coding (not kimi):

{
  "models": {
    "providers": {
      "kimi-coding": {
        "baseUrl": "https://agent-gw.kimi.com/coding",
        "api": "anthropic-messages",
        "models": [
          {
            "id": "k2p5",
            "name": "k2p5",
            "reasoning": true,
            "contextWindow": 131072,
            "maxTokens": 32768
          }
        ]
      }
    }
  }
}

1. Set the agent default model to kimi-coding/k2p5:

{
  "agents": {
    "defaults": {
      "model": {
        "primary": "kimi-coding/k2p5"
      }
    }
  }
}

1. Start a new session and run /status.

Expected Behavior

🧠 Model: kimi-coding/k2p5 · 🔑 api-key (models.json)

Direct resolution with no fallback message.

Actual Behavior

🧠 Model: kimi/k2p5 · 🔑 api-key (models.json)
↪️ Fallback: kimi-coding/k2p5 (selected model unavailable)

The provider is normalized to kimi before the model catalog is consulted. When kimi/k2p5 is not found, the system falls back to the original string.

Root Cause

normalizeProviderId() treats kimi-coding as an alias of kimi:

// src/agents/provider-id.ts
function normalizeProviderId(provider: string): string {
  const normalized = normalizeLowercaseStringOrEmpty(provider);
  if (normalized === "modelstudio" || normalized === "qwencloud") return "qwen";
  // ... other aliases ...
  if (normalized === "kimi" || normalized === "kimi-code" || normalized === "kimi-coding") return "kimi";
  // ...
  return normalized;
}

Because kimi-coding is a separate, namespaced provider in the user's config (with its own base URL, headers, and models), collapsing it to kimi breaks the lookup chain:

1. normalizeModelRef("kimi-coding", "k2p5") → { provider: "kimi", model: "k2p5" }
2. Resolver searches catalog for kimi/k2p5 → not found
3. Fallback to raw string kimi-coding/k2p5

This also affects:

• findNormalizedProviderValue()
• findNormalizedProviderKey()
• normalizeModelRef() (via src/agents/model-selection-shared.ts)

Proposed Fix

Option A — Minimal / Recommended:

Remove kimi-coding from the Kimi alias branch so it remains a distinct provider ID. kimi and kimi-code can still normalize to kimi if that behavior is needed for backward compatibility.

// src/agents/provider-id.ts
// BEFORE:
if (normalized === "kimi" || normalized === "kimi-code" || normalized === "kimi-coding") return "kimi";

// AFTER:
if (normalized === "kimi" || normalized === "kimi-code") return "kimi";

Option B — Structural:

Reverse the lookup order in normalizeModelRef / findNormalizedProviderKey:

1. First attempt an exact lookup using the raw provider ID.
2. Only if that fails, fall back to the normalized form.

This makes normalization a true fallback rather than an unconditional rewrite, which is safer for custom provider namespaces.

Files to Modify (upstream source)

If Option B is preferred, also modify:

• src/agents/model-selection-shared.ts (normalizeModelRef)
• src/agents/provider-id.ts (findNormalizedProviderValue, findNormalizedProviderKey)

Workaround (for users until fix is released)

Rename the provider key from kimi-coding to kimi in models.providers. Note: this may conflict if you also need a separate kimi provider entry.

Verification

After applying Option A and restarting the gateway, start a new session with the config above and run /status. Expected output:

🧠 Model: kimi-coding/k2p5 · 🔑 api-key (models.json)

No fallback arrow should appear.

Additional Context

• The normalizeProviderId function is also bundled into the Control UI (control-ui/assets/index-*.js), so the fix must be reflected there as well in the build output.
• The kimi-coding plugin (extensions/kimi-coding/index.ts) references the provider ID directly; it does not need changes because it imports normalizeProviderId from core.