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OpenClaw is a personal AI assistant that runs on your own devices. It bridges messaging services (WhatsApp, Telegram, Slack, Discord, iMessage, and more) to AI coding agents through a centralized gateway.

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Quick start

ollama launch openclaw
Ollama handles everything automatically:
  1. Install — If OpenClaw isn’t installed, Ollama prompts to install it via npm
  2. Security — On the first launch, a security notice explains the risks of tool access
  3. Model — Pick a model from the selector (local or cloud)
  4. Onboarding — Ollama configures the provider, installs the gateway daemon, sets your model as the primary, and installs the web search and fetch plugin
  5. Gateway — Starts in the background and opens the OpenClaw TUI
OpenClaw requires a larger context window. It is recommended to use a context window of at least 64k tokens if using local models. See Context length for more information.
Previously known as Clawdbot. ollama launch clawdbot still works as an alias.

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Web search and fetch

OpenClaw ships with a web search and fetch plugin that gives local or cloud models the ability to search the web and extract readable page content. 
ollama launch openclaw
Web search and fetch is enabled automatically when launching OpenClaw through Ollama. To install the plugin directly: 
openclaw plugins install @ollama/openclaw-web-search
Web search for local models requires ollama signin.

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Configure without launching

To change the model without starting the gateway and TUI: 
ollama launch openclaw --config
To use a specific model directly: 
ollama launch openclaw --model kimi-k2.5:cloud
If the gateway is already running, it restarts automatically to pick up the new model. Cloud models:
  • kimi-k2.5:cloud — Multimodal reasoning with subagents
  • minimax-m2.7:cloud — Fast, efficient coding and real-world productivity
  • glm-5:cloud — Reasoning and code generation
Local models:
  • glm-4.7-flash — Reasoning and code generation locally (~25 GB VRAM)
More models at ollama.com/search.

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Non-interactive (headless) mode

Run OpenClaw without interaction for use in Docker, CI/CD, or scripts: 
ollama launch openclaw --model kimi-k2.5:cloud --yes
The --yes flag auto-pulls the model, skips selectors, and requires --model to be specified.

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Connect messaging apps

openclaw configure --section channels
Link WhatsApp, Telegram, Slack, Discord, or iMessage to chat with your local models from anywhere.

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Stopping the gateway

openclaw gateway stop