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Peter Steinberger 79e4354e5c docs: merge contributing into community

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🦞 CLAWDBOT — Personal AI Assistant

EXFOLIATE! EXFOLIATE!

Clawdbot is a personal AI assistant you run on your own devices. It answers you on the surfaces you already use (WhatsApp, Telegram, Slack, Discord, iMessage, WebChat), can speak and listen on macOS/iOS, and can render a live Canvas you control. The Gateway is just the control plane — the product is the assistant.

If you want a personal, single-user assistant that feels local, fast, and always-on, this is it.

Website: clawdbot.com · Docs: docs.clawdbot.com · FAQ: FAQ · Wizard: Wizard · Nix: nix-clawdbot · Docker: Docker · Discord: discord.gg/clawd

Preferred setup: run the onboarding wizard (clawdbot onboard). It walks through gateway, workspace, providers, and skills. The CLI wizard is the recommended path and works on macOS, Windows, and Linux.

Subscriptions: Anthropic (Claude Pro/Max) and OpenAI (ChatGPT/Codex) are supported via OAuth. See Onboarding.

Recommended setup (from source)

Do not download prebuilt binaries. Build from source.

# Clone this repo
git clone https://github.com/clawdbot/clawdbot.git
cd clawdbot

pnpm install
pnpm build
pnpm ui:build
pnpm clawdbot onboard

Quick start (from source)

Runtime: Node ≥22 + pnpm.

pnpm install
pnpm build
pnpm ui:build

# Recommended: run the onboarding wizard
pnpm clawdbot onboard

# Link WhatsApp (stores creds in ~/.clawdbot/credentials)
pnpm clawdbot login

# Start the gateway
pnpm clawdbot gateway --port 18789 --verbose

# Dev loop (auto-reload on TS changes)
pnpm gateway:watch

# Send a message
pnpm clawdbot send --to +1234567890 --message "Hello from Clawdbot"

# Talk to the assistant (optionally deliver back to WhatsApp/Telegram/Slack/Discord)
pnpm clawdbot agent --message "Ship checklist" --thinking high

Upgrading? clawdbot doctor.

If you run from source, prefer pnpm clawdbot … (not global clawdbot).

Highlights

Local-first Gateway — single control plane for sessions, providers, tools, and events.
Multi-surface inbox — WhatsApp, Telegram, Slack, Discord, iMessage, WebChat, macOS, iOS/Android.
Voice Wake + Talk Mode — always-on speech for macOS/iOS/Android with ElevenLabs.
Live Canvas — agent-driven visual workspace with A2UI.
First-class tools — browser, canvas, nodes, cron, sessions, and Discord/Slack actions.
Companion apps — macOS menu bar app + iOS/Android nodes.
Onboarding + skills — wizard-driven setup with bundled/managed/workspace skills.

Everything we built so far

Core platform

Gateway WS control plane with sessions, presence, config, cron, webhooks, control UI, and Canvas host.
CLI surface: gateway, agent, send, wizard, doctor/update, and TUI.
Pi agent runtime in RPC mode with tool streaming and block streaming.
Session model: main for direct chats, group isolation, activation modes, queue modes, reply-back.
Media pipeline: images/audio/video, transcription hooks, size caps, temp file lifecycle.

Surfaces + providers

WhatsApp (Baileys), Telegram (grammY), Slack (Bolt), Discord (discord.js), Signal (signal-cli), iMessage (imsg), WebChat.
Group mention gating, reply tags, per-surface chunking and routing.

Apps + nodes

macOS app: menu bar control plane, Voice Wake/PTT, Talk Mode overlay, WebChat, Debug tools, SSH remote gateway control.
iOS node: Canvas, Voice Wake, Talk Mode, camera, screen recording, Bonjour pairing.
Android node: Canvas, Talk Mode, camera, screen recording, optional SMS.
macOS node mode: system.run/notify + canvas/camera exposure.

Tools + automation

Browser control: dedicated clawd Chrome/Chromium, snapshots, actions, uploads, profiles.
Canvas: A2UI push/reset, eval, snapshot.
Nodes: camera snap/clip, screen record, location.get, notifications.
Cron + wakeups; webhooks; Gmail Pub/Sub triggers.
Skills platform: bundled, managed, and workspace skills with install gating + UI.

Ops + packaging

Control UI + WebChat served directly from the Gateway.
Tailscale Serve/Funnel or SSH tunnels with token/password auth.
Nix mode for declarative config; Docker-based installs.
Health, doctor migrations, structured logging, release tooling.

How it works (short)

Your surfaces
   │
   ▼
┌───────────────────────────────┐
│            Gateway            │  ws://127.0.0.1:18789
│       (control plane)         │  tcp://0.0.0.0:18790 (optional Bridge)
└──────────────┬────────────────┘
               │
               ├─ Pi agent (RPC)
               ├─ CLI (clawdbot …)
               ├─ WebChat (browser)
               ├─ macOS app (Clawdbot.app)
               └─ iOS node (Canvas + voice)

Skills registry (ClawdHub)

ClawdHub is a minimal skill registry. With ClawdHub enabled, the agent can search for skills automatically and pull in new ones as needed.

https://clawdhub.com

Chat commands

Send these in WhatsApp/Telegram/Slack/WebChat (group commands are owner-only):

/status — health + session info (group shows activation mode)
/new or /reset — reset the session
/think <level> — off|minimal|low|medium|high
/verbose on|off
/restart — restart the gateway (owner-only in groups)
/activation mention|always — group activation toggle (groups only)

macOS app (optional)

The Gateway alone delivers a great experience. All apps are optional and add extra features.

macOS (Clawdbot.app) (optional)

Menu bar control for the Gateway and health.
Voice Wake + push-to-talk overlay.
WebChat + debug tools.
Remote gateway control over SSH.

Build/run: ./scripts/restart-mac.sh (packages + launches).

iOS node (optional)

Pairs as a node via the Bridge.
Voice trigger forwarding + Canvas surface.
Controlled via clawdbot nodes ….

Runbook: iOS connect.

Android node (optional)

Pairs via the same Bridge + pairing flow as iOS.
Exposes Canvas, Camera, and Screen capture commands.
Runbook: Android connect.

Agent workspace + skills

Workspace root: ~/clawd (configurable via agent.workspace).
Injected prompt files: AGENTS.md, SOUL.md, TOOLS.md.
Skills: ~/clawd/skills/<skill>/SKILL.md.

Configuration

Minimal ~/.clawdbot/clawdbot.json (model + defaults):

{
  agent: {
    model: "anthropic/claude-opus-4-5"
  }
}

Full configuration reference (all keys + examples).

Read the WhatsApp provider guide in docs/whatsapp.md.

Link the device: pnpm clawdbot login (stores creds in ~/.clawdbot/credentials).
Allowlist who can talk to the assistant via whatsapp.allowFrom.

Read the Telegram provider guide in docs/telegram.md.

Set TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN or telegram.botToken (env wins).
Optional: set telegram.groups (with telegram.groups."*".requireMention), telegram.allowFrom, or telegram.webhookUrl as needed.

{
  telegram: {
    botToken: "123456:ABCDEF"
  }
}

Slack

Read the Slack provider guide in docs/slack.md.

Set SLACK_BOT_TOKEN + SLACK_APP_TOKEN (or slack.botToken + slack.appToken).

Discord

Read the Discord provider guide in docs/discord.md.

Set DISCORD_BOT_TOKEN or discord.token (env wins).
Optional: set discord.slashCommand, discord.dm.allowFrom, discord.guilds, or discord.mediaMaxMb as needed.

{
  discord: {
    token: "1234abcd"
  }
}

Signal

Read the Signal provider guide in docs/signal.md.

Requires signal-cli and a signal config section.

iMessage

Read the iMessage provider guide in docs/imessage.md.

macOS only; Messages must be signed in.

WebChat

Read the WebChat guide in docs/webchat.md.

Uses the Gateway WebSocket; no separate WebChat port/config.

Browser control (optional):

{
  browser: {
    enabled: true,
    controlUrl: "http://127.0.0.1:18791",
    color: "#FF4500"
  }
}

Docs

Email hooks (Gmail)

Gmail Pub/Sub wiring (gcloud + gogcli), hook tokens, and auto-watch behavior are documented here.

Gateway auto-starts the watcher when hooks.enabled=true and hooks.gmail.account is set; clawdbot hooks gmail run is the manual daemon wrapper if you don’t want auto-start.

clawdbot hooks gmail setup --account you@gmail.com
clawdbot hooks gmail run

Clawd

Clawdbot was built for Clawd, a space lobster AI assistant. 🦞
by Peter Steinberger and the community.

Community

See CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines, maintainers, and how to submit PRs.
AI/vibe-coded PRs welcome! 🤖

Thanks to everyone who has contributed:

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