zclaw

The smallest possible AI personal assistant for ESP32.

zclaw is written in C and runs on ESP32 boards with a strict all-in firmware budget target of <= 888 KiB on the default build. It supports scheduled tasks, GPIO control, persistent memory, and custom tool composition through natural language.

The 888 KiB cap is all-in firmware size, not just app code. It includes zclaw logic plus ESP-IDF/FreeRTOS runtime, Wi-Fi/networking, TLS/crypto, and cert bundle overhead.

Fun to use, fun to hack on.

Full Documentation

Use the docs site for complete guides and reference.

• Full documentation
• Use cases: useful + fun
• Changelog (web)
• Complete README (verbatim)

Quick Start

One-line bootstrap (macOS/Linux):

bash <(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/tnm/zclaw/main/scripts/bootstrap.sh)

Already cloned?

./install.sh

Non-interactive install:

./install.sh -y

Setup notes

• bootstrap.sh clones/updates the repo and then runs ./install.sh. You can inspect/verify the bootstrap flow first (including ZCLAW_BOOTSTRAP_SHA256 integrity checks); see the Getting Started docs.
• For encrypted credentials in flash, use secure mode (--flash-mode secure in install flow, or ./scripts/flash-secure.sh directly).
• After flashing, provision WiFi + LLM credentials with ./scripts/provision.sh.
• You can re-run either ./scripts/provision.sh or ./scripts/provision-dev.sh at any time (no reflash required) to update runtime credentials: WiFi SSID/password, LLM backend/model/API key (or Ollama API URL), and Telegram token/chat ID allowlist.
• Default LLM rate limits are 100/hour and 1000/day; change compile-time limits in main/config.h (RATELIMIT_*).
• Quick validation path: run ./scripts/web-relay.sh and send a test message to confirm the device can answer.
• If serial port is busy, run ./scripts/release-port.sh and retry.
• For repeat local reprovisioning without retyping secrets, use ./scripts/provision-dev.sh with a local profile file (provision-dev.sh wraps provision.sh --yes).

Highlights

• Chat via Telegram or hosted web relay
• Timezone-aware schedules (daily, periodic, and one-shot once)
• Built-in + user-defined tools
• GPIO read/write control with guardrails (including bulk gpio_read_all)
• Persistent memory across reboots
• Persona options: neutral, friendly, technical, witty
• Provider support for Anthropic, OpenAI, OpenRouter, and Ollama (custom endpoint)

Hardware

Tested targets: ESP32-C3, ESP32-S3, and ESP32-C6. Other ESP32 variants should work fine (some may require manual ESP-IDF target setup). Tests reports are very welcome!

Recommended starter board: Seeed XIAO ESP32-C3

Local Dev & Hacking

Typical fast loop:

./scripts/test.sh host
./scripts/build.sh
./scripts/flash.sh --kill-monitor /dev/cu.usbmodem1101
./scripts/provision-dev.sh --port /dev/cu.usbmodem1101
./scripts/monitor.sh /dev/cu.usbmodem1101

Profile setup once, then re-use:

./scripts/provision-dev.sh --write-template
# edit ~/.config/zclaw/dev.env
./scripts/provision-dev.sh --show-config
./scripts/provision-dev.sh

# if Telegram keeps replaying stale updates:
./scripts/telegram-clear-backlog.sh --show-config

More details in the Local Dev & Hacking guide.

Other Useful Scripts

Show scripts

• ./scripts/flash-secure.sh - Flash with encryption
• ./scripts/provision.sh - Provision credentials to NVS
• ./scripts/provision-dev.sh - Local profile wrapper for repeat provisioning
• ./scripts/telegram-clear-backlog.sh - Clear queued Telegram updates
• ./scripts/erase.sh - Erase NVS only (--nvs) or full flash (--all) with guardrails
• ./scripts/monitor.sh - Serial monitor
• ./scripts/emulate.sh - Run QEMU profile
• ./scripts/web-relay.sh - Hosted relay + mobile chat UI
• ./scripts/benchmark.sh - Benchmark relay/serial latency
• ./scripts/test.sh - Run host/device test flows
• ./scripts/test-api.sh - Run live provider API checks (manual/local)

Size Breakdown

Current default esp32s3 breakdown (grouped loadable image bytes from idf.py -B build size-components; rows sum to total image size):

Segment	Bytes	Size	Share
zclaw app logic (libmain.a)	35742	~34.9 KiB	~4.1%
Wi-Fi + networking stack	397356	~388.0 KiB	~45.7%
TLS/crypto stack	112922	~110.3 KiB	~13.0%
cert bundle + app metadata	99722	~97.4 KiB	~11.5%
other ESP-IDF/runtime/drivers/libc	224096	~218.8 KiB	~25.8%

Total image size from this build is 869838 bytes; padded zclaw.bin is 869952 bytes (~849.6 KiB), still under the cap.

Latency Benchmarking

Relay path benchmark (includes web relay processing + device round trip):

./scripts/benchmark.sh --mode relay --count 20 --message "ping"

Direct serial benchmark (host round trip + first response time). If firmware logs METRIC request ... lines, the report also includes device-side timing:

./scripts/benchmark.sh --mode serial --serial-port /dev/cu.usbmodem1101 --count 20 --message "ping"

License

MIT