OpenClaw Quick Tutorial

OpenClaw is your private, autonomous AI agent that lives on your VPS and runs 24/7. It uses any LLM (Venice.ai, local Ollama, etc.) + real skills/tools to actually do things - read/write emails, control your browser, manage calendar/files, run shell commands, and more - while keeping all your data 100% private. Persistent memory, proactive cron jobs, multi-agent swarms, and native support for Telegram, Web UI, and TUI make it feel like a real digital assistant you own.

📚 Official Documentation

For comprehensive guides, troubleshooting, and advanced configuration, visit the official OpenClaw documentation:

• Home Page & Quick Start
• Getting Started Guide
• Run Onboarding (Setup Wizard)
• Open Control UI
• Gateway Configuration
• Security & Access Control
• Remote Access (SSH, Tailscale)
• Telegram Channel Setup
• Mobile Nodes (iOS, Android)
• Full Feature List
• Multi-Agent Routing
• Skills & Tools
• Troubleshooting & Diagnostics

Need the complete documentation index? Check out the llms.txt file to discover all available documentation pages.

Table of Contents

• 1. Essentials: How to Use It Right Now
• 2. Must-Know CLI Commands (VPS)
• 3. Core Files & Security
• 4. Cool Things to Try
• 5. Quick Troubleshooting
• 6. Advanced Hacker Stuff

1. Essentials: How to Use It Right Now

Access the Interfaces

• TUI (Terminal UI) - Fastest for testing. SSH in and run:

  openclaw tui

• Web UI / Dashboard - Full chat, skills, logs, config. Best viewed via SSH tunnel (see below).
• Telegram - Already connected? Just DM your bot or mention it in allowed groups.

🌐 Web Dashboard Securely via SSH Tunnel (Mac Terminal)

For maximum security (no public port 18789), tunnel the dashboard through SSH so it feels like it's running locally on your Mac.

Step-by-step

1. Open Terminal on your Mac.
2. Run the tunnel command (replace with your details):

   ssh -L 18789:localhost:18789 yourusername@your_VPS_IP

3. Keep the Terminal window open.
4. Open browser → http://localhost:18789

ssh -N -f -L 18789:localhost:18789 yourusername@your_VPS_IP

alias openclaw-web='ssh -N -f -L 18789:localhost:18789 yourusername@your_VPS_IP && echo "✅ Tunnel created! Open http://localhost:18789"'

2. Must-Know CLI Commands (run on VPS)

Run these from your SSH session. Start every login with openclaw doctor.

Core Essentials

Gateway & Service Management

• openclaw gateway restart → Restart after config/skills changes
• openclaw gateway status --deep → Full health + channels/skills
• openclaw health → One-liner overview

Channels

• openclaw channels list
• openclaw channels status
• openclaw channels add telegram → Fix Telegram if needed

Models & Config (Most Important Section)

• openclaw models list → All available models + current active one
• openclaw models status → Usage, quotas, cost, fallback info (run this after any change!)
• openclaw models set <provider/model-or-alias> → Sets the permanent global default model for all new conversations and agents
• openclaw models set-image <provider/model> → Sets the vision/image model separately
• openclaw models test → Quick speed + token usage benchmark

openclaw models aliases add fast venice/claude-4.6-sonnet
openclaw models aliases add opus venice/claude-4.6-opus
openclaw models fallbacks add ollama/gemma4:26b

Skills, Plugins & Maintenance

• openclaw skills install <name> or openclaw skills search <keyword>
• openclaw skills update
• openclaw doctor --fix → Auto-fix common issues
• openclaw status --all --deep → Complete system view
• openclaw security audit
• openclaw dashboard → Open Web UI from terminal

alias oc='openclaw'
alias ocd='openclaw doctor --fix'
alias ocg='openclaw gateway restart'
alias ocl='openclaw logs --follow'
alias ocw='openclaw-web'

3. Core Files & Security

Everything lives in ~/.openclaw/workspace/ (or your configured path).

• SOUL.md → Edit to change your agent's personality
• MEMORY.md / AGENTS.md → Persistent memory & multi-agent swarms
• skills/ folder → All your installed skills

Security Basics on VPS

• Run openclaw doctor regularly
• Use the auto-generated strong gateway token
• Consider Tailscale for easy & secure remote access

4. Cool Things to Try

🛠️ Install Your First Skills

Web UI → Skills tab (or clawhub.ai). Start with:

• Browser control
• Gmail / Email
• GitHub
• Calendar / Todoist

Or just tell it in chat: "Install the browser skill".

📅 Daily Proactive Stuff

"Every morning at 8am summarize my unread emails and send me a Telegram digest"

Or: "Remind me 30 min before every calendar meeting".

👥 Multi-Agent Swarms

Edit AGENTS.md to create specialized sub-agents (coding, finance, research, etc.).

🎙️ Voice + Fun Automations

• Enable ElevenLabs voice mode for hands-free talking
• "Check me in for my flight"
• "Unsubscribe from all my newsletters"

5. Quick Troubleshooting

Still stuck? Run openclaw doctor and share the output in the OpenClaw community.

6. Advanced Hacker Stuff

• Full file/shell access (sandboxed by default)
• Local-only mode with Ollama (zero cost/privacy-max)
• Cron jobs + webhooks for full automation
• Clone your OpenClaw as a sub-agent

Play with skills and /think high - that's when OpenClaw stops feeling like a chatbot and starts feeling like a real teammate.