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.

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 enables OpenClaw's bundled Ollama web search
5. Gateway — Starts in the background and opens the OpenClaw TUI

Note

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.

Note

Previously known as Clawdbot. ollama launch clawdbot still works as an alias.

Web search and fetch

OpenClaw ships with a bundled Ollama web_search provider that lets local or cloud-backed Ollama setups search the web through the configured Ollama host.

ollama launch openclaw

Ollama web search is enabled automatically when launching OpenClaw through Ollama. To configure it manually:

openclaw configure --section web

Note

Ollama web search for local models requires ollama signin.

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.

Recommended models

Cloud models:

• kimi-k2.5:cloud — Multimodal reasoning with subagents
• qwen3.5:cloud — Reasoning, coding, and agentic tool use with vision
• glm-5.1:cloud — Reasoning and code generation
• minimax-m2.7:cloud — Fast, efficient coding and real-world productivity

Local models:

• gemma4 — Reasoning and code generation locally (~16 GB VRAM)
• qwen3.5 — Reasoning, coding, and visual understanding locally (~11 GB VRAM)

More models at ollama.com/search.

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.

Connect messaging apps

openclaw configure --section channels

Link WhatsApp, Telegram, Slack, Discord, or iMessage to chat with your local models from anywhere.

Stopping the gateway

openclaw gateway stop