Tested with OpenClaw 2026.2.x
AI-assisted documentation created with Claude
This repo contains a practical guide for running OpenClaw day to day without burning money, quotas, or your sanity.
It is not an official guide. It is not a "best setup." It reflects how I actually run OpenClaw after breaking it repeatedly and wanting something stable, predictable, and boring in the best way.
If you are looking for flashy demos or "this changes everything" energy, this probably isn't it.
- A runbook for people who want OpenClaw to run for weeks, not minutes
- Opinionated, but explicit about tradeoffs
- Focused on coordinator vs worker models, cost control, memory boundaries, and guardrails
- Written from the "post-honeymoon" phase
- A beginner tutorial
- A marketing page for models or vendors
- A claim that this setup is right for everyone
The main guide lives here:
It includes real config snippets, explanations of why certain choices were made, and patterns that held up over time.
The examples/ directory contains actionable templates and references:
- agent-prompts.md - Creating specialized agents, model chains, and coordinator/researcher/communicator patterns
- spawning-patterns.md - How to spawn sub-agents from skills, prompts, and cron jobs
- heartbeat-example.md - Rotating heartbeat pattern for monitoring
- skill-builder-prompt.md - Prompt template for creating AgentSkills
- task-tracking-prompt.md - Build a task tracking system for agent visibility
- security-patterns.md - Prompt injection defense and security rules
- vps-setup.md - VPS deployment and hardening guide
- sanitized-config.json - Example OpenClaw configuration
- config-example-guide.md - Config section reference
- check-quotas.sh - Script to check API quota usage across providers
The showcases/ directory contains copy-paste ready automation patterns from the community:
- daily-brief - Morning summary with weather, calendar, tasks
- idea-pipeline - Overnight research on captured ideas
- linkedin-drafter - Weekly content generation
- tech-discoveries - Curated tech news
- homelab-access - Safe remote SSH via Telegram
- agent-orchestrator - Route coding tasks to optimal tools
Each showcase is designed to be immediately usable. Copy the cron job, replace the placeholders, and deploy.
Have an automation that works well? See showcases/template.md to submit your own.
If this guide helped you, please consider:
- Sharing it with others who might find it useful
- Linking back if you reference it in blog posts, videos, or other resources
- Submitting your own showcases so others can learn from your setup
This is a community resource. The more people contribute, the better it gets for everyone.
Other helpful OpenClaw resources from the community:
Official & Discovery
- ClawHub - Discover and share AgentSkills
- OpenClaw Docs - Official documentation
Awesome Lists
- awesome-openclaw-usecases - Real-world use cases and examples
- awesome-openclaw - Curated list of tools and resources
- awesome-openclaw-skills - Community-contributed skills
These complement this runbook with more examples, skills, and community patterns.
Contributions are welcome, but this is not a free-for-all.
Please read CONTRIBUTING.md before opening issues or pull requests.
MIT