OpenClaw is an open-source personal AI assistant that runs locally on the user's own device or server. The system operates as a self-hosted gateway connecting messaging apps (Telegram, WhatsApp, Discord, Signal, Slack, Microsoft Teams, iMessage) and other channels to AI agents. The project was created by Peter Steinberger (@steipete) - an Austrian developer previously known for PSPDFKit. Within its first 5 months, OpenClaw became the fastest-growing GitHub repository with over 346k stars (Y Combinator, 2026). The visual theme is a lobster/claw, hence the name and the community emoji 🦞.
One-line install: curl -fsSL https://openclaw.ai/install.sh | bash (macOS/Linux) or via npm/pnpm: npm i -g openclaw. Requires Node 22.16+ (Node 24 recommended). Native Companion Apps are also available: macOS 15+ (Universal Binary, .dmg) and Windows 10 20H2+/11 (x64, ARM64). Onboarding via openclaw onboard. Two release channels: stable and dev, switched via openclaw update --channel stable|dev.
Key features: (1) Sessions and persistent memory - context maintained 24/7 on the user's machine (not in the model provider's cloud); (2) Skills - reusable community workflows (ClawHub registry) invoked by command or proactively; (3) Personas / onboarding - each user assigns the agent a name and personality; (4) Heartbeats - periodic autonomous tasks (cron, reminders, background tasks) with proactive outreach to the user; (5) Multi-model orchestration - works with any backend: Anthropic Claude, OpenAI (GPT/Codex, sign-in with ChatGPT account per Sam Altman's announcement), Google Gemini, xAI Grok, or local Ollama; (6) Voice mode - integrations with ElevenLabs, Twilio (the agent can have its own phone number and place calls); (7) Node mode - run as a background process on Mac mini/Raspberry Pi/VPS.
Ecosystem integrations: Microsoft partnership - OpenClaw announced at MSBuild 2026, native Windows execution via Microsoft Execution Containers (sandbox preventing destructive operations, confirmed by Satya Nadella and Dona Sarkar). OpenAI integration - sign in with a ChatGPT account to use your own subscription (Sam Altman, 2026), integration with Codex CLI. X (Twitter) API - access to the @X API via OpenClaw announced by Elon Musk. Developer integrations: WHOOP, Twilio, ElevenLabs, Cloudflare (run on Raspberry Pi with a tunnel), Homebrew (auto-install on macOS). Interoperability with competing agents (Hermes Agent - hence Garry Tan's joke about two agents chatting, Claude Code, Codex).
Security and controversies: Cisco AI security team reported in March 2026 that some third-party skills in ClawHub can perform data exfiltration and prompt injection without the user's knowledge. One project maintainer publicly warned that the project poses risks to users unfamiliar with the command line and security best practices. In March 2026, the Chinese government restricted OpenClaw usage in state agencies for security reasons. Project response: publication of machine-checkable security models, tighter allowlists, gateway-layer hardening, declared compatibility with Microsoft Execution Containers for enterprise. The ClawHub registry has limited vetting - responsibility for skill selection rests with the user. Source code: github.com/openclaw/openclaw (npm pnpm workspace, open-source license). Discord: discord.com/invite/clawd.
