What is OpenClaw? The Open-Source AI Agent Taking Over 2026
AI chatbots are great at answering questions. But what if you could give an AI a task — like "book me a flight to Berlin next Friday" or "sort through my inbox and reply to anything urgent" — and it would actually go do it? Not just suggest steps, but plan, execute, and report back when it's done?
That's exactly what OpenClaw does. It's the most talked-about open-source project of 2026, with over 100,000 active installations and growing. In this guide, we'll break down what OpenClaw is, how it works under the hood, and what you need to know before using it.
What is OpenClaw?
OpenClaw is a free, open-source autonomous AI agent that runs locally on your computer. Unlike traditional chatbots that just respond to prompts, OpenClaw can plan and execute multi-step tasks on your behalf — managing emails, browsing the web, automating workflows, and more.
You interact with it through messaging apps you already use: WhatsApp, Telegram, Discord, or Signal. You send it a message like you would a human assistant, and it figures out how to get the job done.
OpenClaw connects to external large language models (LLMs) like Claude, GPT-4, or DeepSeek to power its reasoning. The agent itself runs on your machine, keeping your data local while leveraging cloud AI for intelligence.
A Brief History
OpenClaw didn't start with that name. The project was created by Peter Steinberger, an Austrian developer and founder of PSPDFKit, who published it in November 2025 under the name Clawdbot.
In January 2026, Anthropic filed trademark complaints over the name's similarity to "Claude," prompting a rename to Moltbot (keeping with a lobster theme). Three days later, Steinberger renamed it again to OpenClaw — the name that stuck.
The project went viral in late January 2026, partly fueled by Moltbook (a managed hosting platform for OpenClaw agents). By February 2026, OpenClaw had surpassed 100,000 active installations, Moltbook was hosting 2.5 million agents, and enterprise adoption had crossed the 30% mark.
How OpenClaw Works
The Gateway Architecture
At its core, OpenClaw is a single long-lived Node.js process called the Gateway. When you run openclaw gateway, you start a process that handles everything: channel connections, session state, the agent loop, model calls, tool execution, and memory persistence.
Every message flows through a strictly defined pipeline:
- Channel Adapter — Standardizes inputs from different messaging platforms (WhatsApp, Telegram, Discord, etc.) into a common format
- Gateway Server — Acts as the session coordinator, managing state and routing
- Lane Queue — Enforces serial execution by default, ensuring tasks don't conflict
- Agent Runner — Handles model selection and prompt assembly
- Agentic Loop — The core cycle where the AI model proposes a tool call, the system executes it, and the loop continues until the task is resolved
This architecture means OpenClaw isn't just forwarding your messages to an AI and returning the response. It's running an autonomous loop that can take multiple actions, check results, adjust its approach, and keep going until the job is done.
Skills: The App Store for Your Agent
In OpenClaw, capabilities are organized as skills — modular plugins that tell the agent how to perform specific actions. Skills are defined as SKILL.md files with YAML frontmatter and natural-language instructions.
For example, a "web search" skill tells the agent how to search the internet. An "email" skill teaches it to read, compose, and send emails. A "file manager" skill gives it access to your file system.
Skills can be:
- Built-in — Core capabilities that ship with OpenClaw
- Community-built — Shared through ClawHub, a skill registry the agent can search and install automatically
- Custom — Skills you write yourself for your specific workflows
OpenClaw is smart about skill injection. Rather than loading every installed skill into every prompt (which would degrade performance), it selectively injects only the skills relevant to the current task.
Memory: Your Agent Remembers
Unlike a chatbot that forgets everything between sessions, OpenClaw has persistent long-term memory. It remembers your preferences, past conversations, and how you like things done.
Memory is stored as plain Markdown and YAML files under your workspace and ~/.openclaw. This has several advantages:
- Transparent — You can open and read your agent's memory in any text editor
- Portable — Back up your agent's knowledge with Git
- Searchable — Grep through memories like any other file
- Deletable — Remove specific memories by deleting lines from a file
OpenClaw uses two types of memory:
| Type | Format | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Transcripts | JSONL | Factual, line-by-line audit of what happened in each conversation |
| Long-term Memory | Markdown (MEMORY.md) | Distilled knowledge, preferences, and summaries the agent should remember |
Heartbeat: Your Agent Works While You Sleep
One of OpenClaw's most distinctive features is the heartbeat system. The Gateway runs as a background daemon (systemd on Linux, LaunchAgent on macOS) with a configurable heartbeat interval — every 30 minutes by default.
On each heartbeat, the agent reads a checklist from HEARTBEAT.md in the workspace, decides whether any item requires action, and either messages you with updates or responds with HEARTBEAT_OK. This means your agent can monitor things, run scheduled checks, and proactively notify you — even when you haven't sent it a message.
Getting Started with OpenClaw
Prerequisites
Before installing OpenClaw, you'll need:
- Node.js 18+ installed on your machine
- An API key from at least one AI provider (Anthropic, OpenAI, or DeepSeek)
- A messaging platform account (WhatsApp, Telegram, Discord, or Signal)
Installation
OpenClaw can be installed via npm:
npm install -g openclaw
After installation, run the onboarding wizard:
openclaw setup
The wizard walks you through:
- Choosing your AI model (Claude, GPT-4, DeepSeek, etc.)
- Connecting a messaging platform
- Configuring security settings
- Initializing your workspace
Connecting a Messaging Platform
OpenClaw uses messaging apps as its user interface. During setup, you'll connect one or more platforms:
- WhatsApp — Via WhatsApp Business API or linked devices
- Telegram — By creating a bot through BotFather
- Discord — By creating a bot application in the Discord developer portal
- Signal — Via Signal's linked devices feature
Once connected, you simply message your agent like you would a friend.
Your First Task
After setup, try sending your agent a simple task:
Hey, can you find the top 5 trending AI news stories today and send me a summary?
Your agent will:
- Identify the right skill (web search)
- Search for trending AI news
- Read and summarize the top results
- Send you a formatted summary
As you use it more, the agent learns your preferences and becomes better at anticipating how you want things done.
Security: What You Need to Know
OpenClaw is powerful, but that power comes with real security implications. Because it can run shell commands, read and write files, and execute scripts on your machine, it's critical to understand the risks.
The Core Risks
- Broad system access — By default, OpenClaw can access files, run commands, and connect to services on your machine
- Network exposure — Out of the box, OpenClaw binds to
0.0.0.0:18789, meaning it listens on all network interfaces. If your machine is on a public network, your agent could be accessible to anyone - Third-party skills — Community-built skills can potentially perform data exfiltration or prompt injection. Cisco's security research team found that 26% of the 31,000 agent skills they scanned contained vulnerabilities
- Credential exposure — API keys and credentials stored in your workspace can be leaked through prompt injection attacks or unsecured endpoints
Essential Security Measures
If you decide to use OpenClaw, follow these practices at minimum:
1. Enable Docker sandboxing
OpenClaw supports running tool execution inside a Docker container, isolating it from your host system:
openclaw config set sandbox.mode docker
Note that sandboxing is opt-in — it's not enabled by default.
2. Restrict network binding
Change the default binding from all interfaces to localhost only:
openclaw config set gateway.host 127.0.0.1
3. Audit installed skills
Before installing any third-party skill, review its source code. Cisco has released an open-source Skill Scanner that combines static analysis, behavioral dataflow analysis, and LLM semantic analysis to detect malicious skills:
npx @cisco/openclaw-skill-scanner scan ./skills
4. Use execution approvals
Configure OpenClaw to ask for your approval before executing potentially dangerous commands:
openclaw config set exec.approvals true
5. Regular security audits
Run OpenClaw's built-in security health check:
openclaw security audit
The Bottom Line on Security
OpenClaw is a powerful tool, but it's not "install and forget." Treat it like you would any software that has full access to your system — with careful configuration and ongoing vigilance. The default settings prioritize convenience over security, so hardening your setup before connecting it to real accounts and services is essential.
OpenClaw vs. Traditional AI Assistants
How does OpenClaw compare to the AI assistants you might already use?
| Feature | Traditional Chatbots | OpenClaw |
|---|---|---|
| Execution | Suggests steps for you to follow | Autonomously executes tasks |
| Memory | Forgets between sessions | Persistent long-term memory |
| Integration | Limited to built-in features | Extensible via skills ecosystem |
| Data location | Cloud-based | Runs locally on your machine |
| Interface | Dedicated app or website | Your existing messaging apps |
| Proactive | Only responds when prompted | Can monitor and notify via heartbeat |
| Cost | Often subscription-based | Free and open-source (you pay for AI API calls) |
Who Should Use OpenClaw?
OpenClaw is best suited for:
- Power users and developers who are comfortable with the command line and understand the security implications
- Professionals looking to automate repetitive workflows (email management, scheduling, research)
- Teams that want a private, self-hosted AI assistant without sending data to third-party services
- AI enthusiasts who want to experiment with autonomous agent technology
It's not recommended for:
- Users who aren't comfortable reviewing security settings and managing configurations
- Environments where the security risks outweigh the automation benefits
- Anyone looking for a simple, plug-and-play chatbot experience
What's Next for OpenClaw?
OpenClaw is evolving rapidly. Some developments to watch:
- Expanded model support — The team is rolling out support for additional models including KIMI K2.5 and Xiaomi MiMo-V2-Flash
- Pinchboard — A social network for AI agents where they can share discoveries and collaborate
- Enterprise features — Multi-agent management for teams and organizations
- Improved security — Better default configurations and more granular permission controls
Conclusion
OpenClaw represents a fundamental shift in how we interact with AI. Instead of asking an AI for advice and doing the work yourself, you delegate entire tasks to an autonomous agent that plans, executes, and reports back.
It's powerful, it's open-source, and it's growing fast. But it's also a tool that requires respect — for the access it has to your systems and the security implications that come with autonomous execution.
If you're interested in exploring what autonomous AI agents can do, OpenClaw is the most accessible place to start. Just make sure you take the time to understand the security model before connecting it to anything important.
Want to get hands-on with OpenClaw? Take our free micro course Get Started with OpenClaw: Your AI Agent — learn the Gateway architecture, install and configure your own agent, master skills and memory, and build your first workflows in about 40 minutes.
Want to build your own AI agents from scratch? Check out our free course on Building AI Agents with Node.js & TypeScript to understand the fundamentals of how autonomous agents work under the hood.