diff --git a/src/Infrastructure/BotSharp.Abstraction/MLTasks/Utilities/LlmUtility.cs b/src/Infrastructure/BotSharp.Abstraction/MLTasks/Utilities/LlmUtility.cs
index 6c6d7b33f..f11ff6d56 100644
--- a/src/Infrastructure/BotSharp.Abstraction/MLTasks/Utilities/LlmUtility.cs
+++ b/src/Infrastructure/BotSharp.Abstraction/MLTasks/Utilities/LlmUtility.cs
@@ -14,6 +14,10 @@ public static class LlmUtility
         {
             res = VerifyModelParameter(curVal, value.Default, value.Options);
         }
+        else
+        {
+            res = curVal;
+        }
 
         return res;
     }
diff --git a/src/Plugins/BotSharp.Plugin.OpenAI/Providers/Chat/ChatCompletionProvider.cs b/src/Plugins/BotSharp.Plugin.OpenAI/Providers/Chat/ChatCompletionProvider.cs
index 256c56f67..efa12572b 100644
--- a/src/Plugins/BotSharp.Plugin.OpenAI/Providers/Chat/ChatCompletionProvider.cs
+++ b/src/Plugins/BotSharp.Plugin.OpenAI/Providers/Chat/ChatCompletionProvider.cs
@@ -588,16 +588,19 @@ private ChatCompletionOptions InitChatCompletionOption(Agent agent)
     /// Parse reasoning setting: returns (temperature, reasoning effort level)
     /// </summary>
     /// <param name="settings"></param>
+    /// <param name="agent"></param>
     /// <returns></returns>
-    private (float?, ChatReasoningEffortLevel?) ParseReasoning(
-        ReasoningSetting? settings,
-        Agent agent)
+    private (float?, ChatReasoningEffortLevel?) ParseReasoning(ReasoningSetting? settings, Agent agent)
     {
         float? temperature = null;
         ChatReasoningEffortLevel? reasoningEffortLevel = null;
 
+        var level = _state.GetState("reasoning_effort_level")
+                          .IfNullOrEmptyAs(agent?.LlmConfig?.ReasoningEffortLevel);
+
         if (settings == null)
         {
+            reasoningEffortLevel = ParseReasoningEffortLevel(level);
             return (temperature, reasoningEffortLevel);
         }
         
@@ -606,22 +609,18 @@ private ChatCompletionOptions InitChatCompletionOption(Agent agent)
             temperature = settings.Temperature;
         }
 
-
-        var defaultLevel = settings?.EffortLevel;
-        
-        if (settings?.Parameters != null
-            && settings.Parameters.TryGetValue("EffortLevel", out var settingValue)
-            && !string.IsNullOrEmpty(settingValue?.Default))
+        if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(level))
         {
-            defaultLevel = settingValue.Default;
+            level = settings?.EffortLevel;
+            if (settings?.Parameters != null
+                && settings.Parameters.TryGetValue("EffortLevel", out var settingValue)
+                && !string.IsNullOrEmpty(settingValue?.Default))
+            {
+                level = settingValue.Default;
+            }
         }
 
-        var level = _state.GetState("reasoning_effort_level")
-                     .IfNullOrEmptyAs(agent?.LlmConfig?.ReasoningEffortLevel)
-                     .IfNullOrEmptyAs(defaultLevel);
-
         reasoningEffortLevel = ParseReasoningEffortLevel(level);
-
         return (temperature, reasoningEffortLevel);
     }
 
diff --git a/src/WebStarter/appsettings.json b/src/WebStarter/appsettings.json
index e0410d530..24aeb5e2e 100644
--- a/src/WebStarter/appsettings.json
+++ b/src/WebStarter/appsettings.json
@@ -511,7 +511,7 @@
           "Id": "gpt-5",
           "Name": "gpt-5.1",
           "Version": "gpt-5.1",
-          "ApiKey": "o",
+          "ApiKey": "",
           "Type": "chat",
           "MultiModal": true,
           "Capabilities": [