# OpenClaw playbooks

OpenClaw is an open-source, MIT-licensed assistant that runs on your own hardware. A single Gateway process links chat apps such as WhatsApp, Telegram, Slack, Discord and iMessage to the model you choose. The OpenClaw Foundation, a US non-profit, stewards it, and people use it for inbox, calendar and other personal chores.

- Vendor: OpenClaw Foundation
- Kind: personal-agent
- Surfaces: self-hosted, desktop, mobile, terminal, web, slack
- Connects: MCP servers go under mcp.servers in the config, over stdio, SSE or streamable HTTP. OpenClaw can also run as an MCP server. Skills are SKILL.md folders. Browser automation drives a Chromium-based browser through profiles.

- Docs: https://docs.openclaw.ai

## Good at

- Talking to one assistant from the chat apps you already use
- Keeping state, memory and credentials on your own machine
- Adding repeatable procedures as skills, shared through ClawHub
- Using hosted or local models, with no paid tier of its own

## Limits

- Tools run on the host for the main session unless you set up sandboxing
- Inbound chat messages are untrusted input, so prompt injection is a real risk
- One Gateway is one trust boundary, so it does not isolate users who do not trust each other
- Third-party skills and plugins are untrusted code and need review

## Playbooks (2)

- [Get a short morning digest of your personal inbox with read-only access](https://agentshandbook.com/p/triage-your-personal-inbox-into-a-morning-digest.md): Each morning you read one short digest with links to the emails that need you, and nothing in your inbox has changed. (trust: corroborated, risk: medium)
- [Watch competitors' pricing and product pages and get a weekly briefing of real changes](https://agentshandbook.com/p/monitor-competitor-pricing-pages-weekly.md): Every week you get a short briefing of meaningful changes to competitors' pricing and product pages, each with the before text, the after text and a link to the saved snapshot. (trust: corroborated, risk: low)

## Lessons

- [Agents act before you approve, even when you told them to ask first](https://agentshandbook.com/lessons/agents-act-before-you-approve.md)