Changing model in telegram bot is too complicated

[klonuo]

There are at lease 3 commands about models:

1. /model - shows info about the model and allows changing the model but I guess just for current active provider
2. /models - this actually lists providers and not models for current provider and allows changing provider with /models <provider>
3. /model_switch - I thought it would give me graphical selector like some bots does, but it provides command to switch provider and model apparently:

which obviously does not.

What seems to work is:

1. use /models <provider> to switch provider, then
2. use /model <model-id> to switch model

[Audacity88]

@klonuo, yes, that read is mostly correct, and the current command names make this harder than it should be.

The supported flow today is:

1. /models is provider-profile selection, not a model picker. /models <type>.<alias> selects the active provider profile for this sender session. A bare provider family can work only when there is exactly one configured alias for that family.
2. /model shows the current provider/model and the cached model IDs/routes for the active provider profile.
3. /model <model-id> switches the model inside the active provider profile.
4. model_switch is the agent/tool form. It expects a configured provider profile plus a provider-local model, for example model_provider = "openrouter.default" and model = "...". It is runtime/session state, not a persisted config write, and it is not currently a Telegram graphical selector.

So the sequence you found is the intended one today: first /models <provider-profile>, then /model <model-id>. If /model does not show usable model IDs, the operator may need to refresh the cached model list with zeroclaw models refresh --model-provider <type>.<alias>.

I agree the UX needs work. #8600 is already tracking easier per-chat model switching for multi-model providers, including provider catalogs, favorites, and session-level overrides. This discussion is useful evidence for that issue. Separately, the command/help text should be less misleading: /models behaves more like /providers, and model_switch should be clearer that it is a tool/control-plane command rather than a Telegram picker.