These docs track the main branch and may describe unreleased features. The stable documentation lives at docs.docker.com.

xAI (Grok)

Use xAI's Grok models with Docker Agent.

Overview

xAI provides the Grok family of models through an OpenAI-compatible API. Docker Agent includes built-in support for xAI as an alias provider.

Setup

Get an API key from xAI Console
Set the environment variable:
```
export XAI_API_KEY=your-api-key
```

Usage

Inline Syntax

The simplest way to use xAI:

agents:
  root:
    model: xai/grok-3
    description: Assistant using Grok
    instruction: You are a helpful assistant.

Named Model

For more control over parameters:

models:
  grok:
    provider: xai
    model: grok-3
    temperature: 0.7
    max_tokens: 8192

agents:
  root:
    model: grok
    description: Assistant using Grok
    instruction: You are a helpful assistant.

Available Models

Model	Description	Context
`grok-3`	Latest and most capable Grok model	131K
`grok-3-fast`	Faster variant with lower latency	131K
`grok-3-mini`	Compact model for simpler tasks	131K
`grok-3-mini-fast`	Fast variant of the mini model	131K
`grok-2`	Previous generation model	128K
`grok-vision`	Vision-capable model	32K

Check the xAI documentation for the latest available models.

Extended Thinking

Docker Agent's thinking_budget field is not applied to xAI models: the underlying OpenAI-compatible client only sends reasoning_effort for OpenAI reasoning model names (o-series, gpt-5). Setting thinking_budget on a Grok model passes config validation but has no effect on the request.

Grok reasoning models (e.g. grok-3-mini) reason on their own without configuration. For non-reasoning models, use the think tool instead.

How It Works

xAI is implemented as a built-in alias in Docker Agent:

API Type: OpenAI-compatible (openai_chatcompletions)
Base URL: https://api.x.ai/v1
Token Variable: XAI_API_KEY

Example: Research Assistant

agents:
  researcher:
    model: xai/grok-3
    description: Research assistant with real-time knowledge
    instruction: |
      You are a research assistant using Grok.
      Provide well-researched, factual responses.
      Cite sources when available.
    toolsets:
      - type: mcp
        ref: docker:duckduckgo
      - type: think

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