Getting Started with OpenClaw

OpenClaw is an open-source agent orchestration platform that helps you build AI agents with persistent memory, skill systems, and multi-agent coordination.

Core Concepts

Memory Architecture

OpenClaw uses a three-tier memory model:

• Episodic - Daily logs (memory/episodic/YYYY-MM-DD.md)
• Semantic - Knowledge base (memory/semantic/topic.md)
• Procedural - Workflows (memory/procedural/process.md)

Skills System

Skills are modular capabilities stored in ~/.openclaw/skills/. Each skill has:

• SKILL.md - Documentation
• Scripts or tools
• Configuration

Sub-agents

OpenClaw can spawn specialized sub-agents for tasks:

• homelab-guardian - Infrastructure management
• researcher - Web research and analysis
• communicator - Outbound messages
• orchestrator - Tool selection

Quick Start

Installation

# Install OpenClaw
npm install -g openclaw

# Initialize workspace
openclaw init

First Agent

# Create a simple agent
openclaw agent create my-agent

# Run it
openclaw agent run my-agent

Next Steps

• Memory Management Best Practices - Learn about the memory architecture
• Security Framework - Understand agent security levels

This guide covers the basics of OpenClaw. For more details, see the OpenClaw documentation.