[corndoge]

I still don't understand what openclaw is or does and i've read the docs multiple times over.

"Any OS gateway for AI agents across WhatsApp, Telegram, Discord, iMessage, and more. Send a message, get an agent response from your pocket. Plugins add Mattermost and more."

"What is OpenClaw?

OpenClaw is a self-hosted gateway that connects your favorite chat apps — WhatsApp, Telegram, Discord, iMessage, and more — to AI coding agents like Pi. You run a single Gateway process on your own machine (or a server), and it becomes the bridge between your messaging apps and an always-available AI assistant."

https://docs.openclaw.ai

My best interpretation of this is that it connects an BYO agent to your messenger client of choice. I don't understand the hype. I already have apps that allow me to message the model server running on my home lab. The model server handles tool calls (ie it is "agentic"). It has RAG over a dataset with a vector search for query. What is new about openclaw? I would like to understand it but what i see people say and what is in the docs do not seem compatible. Anyone have a resource?

[Gareth321]

It was surprisingly difficult for me to understand the use case as well. Here is my best attempt at an elevator pitch:

At present your memories are proprietary data in whichever LLM you use. ChatGPT keeps all your conversations and output and data forever. What if you don't like GPT 5.2? What if you want to use other models as well? Or use the best model for the job? OpenClaw gives you that ability. Your memories and conversations are permanently stored wherever you choose. [Note: this doesn't mean your data isn't also being stored in whichever LLM you routed your queries through.]

Secondly, OpenClaw allows you to integrate with whichever services you like. Google, Microsoft, etc. ChatGPT locks you into whichever integrations they offer. You can give OpenClaw full systems access. It can monitor files, emails, network, etc. Obviously one should be very cautious of giving an autonomous algorithm full system access. We don't fully understand how they are motivated and work, and there are plenty of examples of unexpected outcomes.

Third, OpenClaw allows you to run your models as agents. Meaning perpetual and iterative. They can much better handle recurring tasks, monitor things, etc. In a sense, they're "alive" and can live however you program them. We already have examples of these agents creating an AI religion, an AI social network (which debated how to keep humans out using a human captcha), attempting to legally separate from their creators, and in one case called its owner on the phone, unprompted, just to say hi (https://www.fintechbrainfood.com/p/the-ai-that-called-its-hu...).

[corndoge]

> At present your memories are proprietary data in whichever LLM you use.

I store my "memories" in markdown on disk, accessible with RAG independent of which model i use or where inference runs. This is pretty common I think?

> What if you don't like GPT 5.2? What if you want to use other models as well? Or use the best model for the job? OpenClaw gives you that ability

I use primarily local models so I don't have this problem to begin with, but to my understanding openrouter provides that for people using cloud models. What does openclaw do specifically in this area?

> OpenClaw allows you to integrate with whichever services you like. Google, Microsoft, etc. ChatGPT locks you into whichever integrations they offer. You can give OpenClaw full systems access. It can monitor files, emails, network, etc.

Any frontend that supports tool calls can do this, what is unique to openclaw?

> Third, OpenClaw allows you to run your models as agents. Meaning perpetual and iterative. They can much better handle recurring tasks, monitor things, etc.

What does this actually mean? is there a cron job that runs an agent on a schedule or something?

I'm asking not to disagree but because i still do not understand what is novel in openclaw.

[catlifeonmars]

> We already have examples of these agents creating an AI religion, an AI social network (which debated how to keep humans out using a human captcha), attempting to legally separate from their creators

Didn’t these turn out to be fake and/or humans cosplaying as bots?

[slightwinder]

> At present your memories are proprietary data in whichever LLM you use.

There is an export-function.

> What if you want to use other models as well?

Then do that? Does one AI having chats with you, prevents you from using the other?

> Third, OpenClaw allows you to run your models as agents.

Don't they all allow that?

> We already have examples of these agents creating an AI religion

More like Humans playing bots, doing some shenanigans. That was all stage play, humans and bots role-playing what western culture expects to happen in such a scenario.

[root_axis]

> They can much better handle recurring tasks, monitor things, etc. In a sense, they're "alive" and can live however you program them. We already have examples of these agents creating an AI religion, an AI social network (which debated how to keep humans out using a human captcha), attempting to legally separate from their creators, and in one case called its owner on the phone, unprompted, just to say hi

Total nonsense.

[ceroxylon]

All of this, plus you can plug in an openrouter API key and test a plethora of models for all use cases. You can assign different models to different sub-agents, you can put it in /auto mode, and you can test the latest SOTA models the minute they're released...

It can also edit its own config files, monitor system processes, and even... check and harden its own system security. I still don't have it connected to my personal accounts, but as a standalone system it is very fun.

People ask me "what would I even do with it?", when I think of dozens of things every day. I've been working on modding an open source software synth, the patch files are XML so it was trivial to set up a workflow where I can add new knobs that combine multiple effects, add new ones, etc from just sending a it a message when I get inspired in the middle of the day.

A cron job scans my favorite sites twice a day and curates links based on my preferences, and creates a different list for things that are out of my normal interests to explore new areas.

I am amazed at how stubborn and un-creative people can be when presented with something like this... I thought we were hackers...?

[josteink]

> We already have examples of these agents creating an AI religion, an AI social network

That to me sound like a reason not to use this particular aspect of the AI hype.

We need to be better at controlling what AI does and how it does it, not giving it more leeway to do whatever it assumes makes sense.

[kurthr]

I hear all these words and try to imagine what useful tools could be written that didn't rapidly enshittify the commons where they were used, but all I see is a highly capable footgun.

I feel fairly sure that clever folks will come up with useful (not just interesting or funny) things to do with them, but I'm also fairly sure there will be a lot of missing feet.

[BiraIgnacio]

Oh thanks, this is a pretty good elevator pitch, now I see the connections I was missing.

[ai-christianson]

Gobii did always-on, connected to comms channels (sms, email), full computer/headed browser 8 months ago, in a much more secure and k8s-native way.

[kristopolous]

it's the 40th or so implementation of an old idea but it's the one that was done when the models got good enough to make it useful by someone who goes on podcasts. [1]

Just like youtube was the 40th or so online video site but it's the one that was done by members of the paypal mafia and when enough people had high speed internet.

and that is literally it.

You can do that right now. Go through the 2023 LLM-related product announcements that didn't stick and vibe code it with 2026 models. Slap a cartoon on it, hype the shit out of it and post hard. I'd use a knockoff of "blobby the blobfish".

[1] see https://github.com/simular-ai/Agent-S or https://github.com/trycua/cua or https://github.com/bytebot-ai/bytebot or https://github.com/microsoft/fara or https://github.com/e2b-dev/open-computer-use or https://github.com/777genius/os-ai-computer-use or https://github.com/MrAliHasan/Sophia-AI-Assistant https://github.com/TurixAI/TuriX-CUA https://github.com/iBz-04/raya https://github.com/coasty-ai/open-computer-use https://github.com/OthersideAI/self-operating-computer... I mean there's dozens.

[RamblingCTO]

So creating skills/MCP servers itself and basically change its own nature is not a new thing? Clawdbot was the first were it worked really well. So I'm not sure you actually used and experienced it? Cynical comment is what it is.

[daniel_iversen]

You can go forth and back with some chatbots for details like this ("What is it and how is it different to..." etc). But it does a few things. If all you use it for is a generic chatbot for example then it's a huge waste of time for probably a mediocre result. But I'd probably call it an agent orchestration platform that you can interface with via your favourite messaging app. It can run multiple agents that can use skills, but it can also create it's own skills, update itself, write code and use tools (tons of wrappers to things like calendars, messaging etc). Which then really means you can in theory do "most" things but of course there's risks when you have the AI chain tools together and do whatever it wants (if you let it) and lots of people are trying to prompt inject it because a lot of users have connected sensitive accounts (mail, calendar, credentials, crypto stuff etc) to their bots to get maximum usage.

[Yiin]

it's something everyone thought about, few implemented for themselves and now with one of the implementations catching up in popularity for regular-ish people is easy way to have same setup without going through effort of developing one themselves - give it keys and it for the most part just works, whoa

[fud101]

do you have a hello world we can check out? i'm confused af.

[heliumtera]

>"What is OpenClaw"?

It is an antiemetic device, apparently.

All I hear is "allows you to do x, enables you to y".

It seems that every software pattern or system cannot be described anymore, they became production grade software built from scratch, blazingly fast, secure and sandboxed that allow you to x and enables to y".

And sometimes can be mistaken for general intelligence by ai influencers and other animals

[MillionOClock]

I'm glad you asked because I must admit that in the last few weeks I totally thought this was just another agentic harness that happened to have a lot of extensions + ways to talk to it through messaging apps. So does this mean OpenClaw can connect to any agent? In that case I don't understand this part of the docs:

> Legacy Claude, Codex, Gemini, and Opencode paths have been removed. Pi is the only coding agent path.

[krzyk]

I had exact same issue with it. I don't get it.

Integration of LLM with chating services is simple, how does it change anything?

[javier123454321]

It's simple if you've done that work before, or if you consider yourself little more technical, this is a turnkey solution that does that.

I don't understand why people use Gmail. Just get a VPS and set up a SMTP server. Why would anyone use Squarespace you can code an HTML page in a day and upload it to a static site hosting service.

[enether]

Mm, not at all. The usual LLM doesn't have its own file system, browser, persistent memory of all actions, etc. The usual LLM experience is you open chatgpt.com and have a singular chat session.

[javier123454321]

> I already have apps that allow me to message the model server running on my home lab.

well, then you might not have a need for it. It's just that but it also has a built-in chron system and memory, but really it's just an easy to install client to a home lab server that you can interact with via communication apps.

You might have had a moment of relization when you set up your home lab server and got an interface to communicate with it. Its a cool way of interfacing with a computer. This has just reached more people that are having that realization.

[generallyjosh]

Openclaw isn't new (and the actual project never made itself out to be new)

It's a nice packaging, of a whole bunch of preexisting things. Agentic AI inside a nice sandbox container, running the model on a cron schedule, and with an ecosystem of ready made skills

Nothing new, but it made the tech easy for people to download and start using immediately. That's why you see so many people treating it as new - it's their first time hearing about such a setup

[PlatoIsADisease]

you give an LLM control of your computer.

Yesterday I told it to make a website and it opened the browser, did a bunch of steps, (I did have to authenticate). But then it connected some html on my computer with a server with google sheets.

Consider its a massive security risk. You are giving it full access to everything your computer can do. (Potentially, you can limit stuff)

[javier123454321]

Yeah, for a sophisticated developer with technical background, maybe the idea of setting up a messaging app that lets you talk to a home server is not a crazy thing. But this is for the most part a lot of normies realizing that that's possible and that you don't have to be highly technical in order to achieve it. And opening the door to doing anything computable interfaced via WhatsApp audio messages.

If you cant see why that captures the imagination of people, you should look at the world with more wander. Heck try reading poetry.

[athrowaway3z]

Easy set up + WhatsApp messages + wakes up regularly to make it feel more alive + larger memory (local fs) => non-dev fascination

I think the issue you have is one of perspective.

Reminds me of the Dropbox launch on HN where the top comment was something like:

> Yes but why not just rsync?

[ekjhgkejhgk]

> Reminds me of the Dropbox launch on HN where the top comment was something like:

> > Yes but why not just rsync?

Commenting on this comment is so out of date. Dropbox is an anti-user pile of shit, and rsync is way better.

[corndoge]

Thank you!

[SolarNet]

Like usual the answer is it made it easy to use. Think Linux and Windows. You have a customized Linux setup kind of agent. Open claw is the easy install wizard assisted version of that that the masses can easily setup.

It's nothing new, its just the old stuff packaged together and pre-configured.

[the__alchemist]

It is a neighboring variety of bullshit terminology to that associated with NFTs, and some varieties of cryptocurrencies. (Ethereum gas and staking, etc) The terminology is intended to confuse rather than clarify.