ERA · March 2026
Getting Started with OpenClaw
or: How I Spent My Weekends Arguing with a Config File
Chuck Blake — ERA, March 2026
What is OpenClaw?
- Local AI agent framework — runs on YOUR machine
- Connects to Telegram, Signal, Discord, etc.
- Always-on: memory, tools, and real actions
- Think: chief of staff, not a chatbot
- Why local: your data, your vault, your rules
Getting Started
30-minute path:
- Install OpenClaw
- Create Telegram bot (BotFather — 2 min)
- Connect to OpenClaw
- Write SOUL.md — who is this agent?
- Have your first conversation
⚠️ Hidden gotcha: default idle timeout = 2 hours
Fix: thread: { mode: "idle", idleMinutes: 5760 }
Memory Architecture
Four Layers
IDENTITY.md — who am I?errors.md — mistakes to avoidMEMORY.md — Chuck's world- Daily log — what happened today?
- + Mem0 / Qdrant vector DB
Two-Stage Retrieval
- Boot → 20 most recent (recency)
- Per question → semantic search
100% Local
- nomic-embed-text
- qwen3.5:9b
- Qdrant in Docker
Secrets Management
- Gomez has his own 1Password vault (can't see personal vault)
- Service account token — read-only, scoped
agent-vault = local cache (fast, avoids API hammering)- Pattern: least privilege, scoped, no shared credentials
Skills + Scripted Components
Skills (~75 total)
- good-morning
- deploy
- pdad-do-next
- omnifocus-process-inbox
Instruction sets that load on demand
Scripts
- morning_briefing.py
- health_log.py
- omnifocus_reset_planned.sh
- op-wrapper.sh
Reliable primitives the agent calls
"Agent orchestrates — scripts execute."
How Much Access?
🟢
Read-only bus — prod events → Slack → agent reads only. Zero risk.
🟡
Read-only production — log access, can analyze, can't change.
🔴
Full scoped access — GitHub App (per repo), Heroku, 1Password vault, OmniFocus.
"Start small. Expand after trust."
Lessons Learned
- Start small — many cycles of tweaking
- Scripts for consistent output
- Programmatic enforcement > prompt guidance
- Self-diagnosis → self-correction → compound improvement
"If your system can't refine itself based on what went wrong last week, you're just running the same broken process faster."
Real failures: JSON config crash · ghost ✅ without verifying · sub-agent recreating deleted crons · R14 flood from 287 re-queued jobs
Where It's Going
- Whistler: autonomous coding sub-agent
- PDAD loop: mostly autonomous product development
- Daily ops on autopilot
- Vision: agent handles operational layer → I focus on judgment
Resources
openclaw.ai
clawhub.com
anthropic.skilljar.com
chuckblake.com/presentations/openclaw-era-2026/