Building a personal assistant with OpenClaw

OpenClaw is a WhatsApp + Telegram + Discord + iMessage gateway for Pi agents. Plugins add Mattermost. This guide is the "personal assistant" setup: one dedicated WhatsApp number that behaves like your always-on agent.

⚠️ Safety first

You’re putting an agent in a position to:

  • run commands on your machine (depending on your Pi tool setup)
  • read/write files in your workspace
  • send messages back out via WhatsApp/Telegram/Discord/Mattermost (plugin)

Start conservative:

  • Always set channels.whatsapp.allowFrom (never run open-to-the-world on your personal Mac).
  • Use a dedicated WhatsApp number for the assistant.
  • Heartbeats now default to every 30 minutes. Disable until you trust the setup by setting agents.defaults.heartbeat.every: "0m".

Prerequisites

  • Node 22+
  • OpenClaw available on PATH (recommended: global install)
  • A second phone number (SIM/eSIM/prepaid) for the assistant
npm install -g openclaw@latest
# or: pnpm add -g openclaw@latest

From source (development):

git clone https://github.com/openclaw/openclaw.git
cd openclaw
pnpm install
pnpm ui:build # auto-installs UI deps on first run
pnpm build
pnpm link --global

The two-phone setup (recommended)

You want this:

Your Phone (personal)          Second Phone (assistant)
β”Œβ”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”           β”Œβ”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”
β”‚  Your WhatsApp  β”‚  ──────▢  β”‚  Assistant WA   β”‚
β”‚  +1-555-YOU     β”‚  message  β”‚  +1-555-ASSIST  β”‚
β””β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”˜           β””β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”¬β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”˜
                                       β”‚ linked via QR
                                       β–Ό
                              β”Œβ”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”
                              β”‚  Your Mac       β”‚
                              β”‚  (openclaw)      β”‚
                              β”‚    Pi agent     β”‚
                              β””β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”˜

If you link your personal WhatsApp to OpenClaw, every message to you becomes β€œagent input”. That’s rarely what you want.

5-minute quick start

  1. Pair WhatsApp Web (shows QR; scan with the assistant phone):
openclaw channels login
  1. Start the Gateway (leave it running):
openclaw gateway --port 18789
  1. Put a minimal config in ~/.openclaw/openclaw.json:
{
  channels: { whatsapp: { allowFrom: ["+15555550123"] } }
}

Now message the assistant number from your allowlisted phone.

When onboarding finishes, we auto-open the dashboard with your gateway token and print the tokenized link. To reopen later: openclaw dashboard.

Give the agent a workspace (AGENTS)

OpenClaw reads operating instructions and β€œmemory” from its workspace directory.

By default, OpenClaw uses ~/.openclaw/workspace as the agent workspace, and will create it (plus starter AGENTS.md, SOUL.md, TOOLS.md, IDENTITY.md, USER.md) automatically on setup/first agent run. BOOTSTRAP.md is only created when the workspace is brand new (it should not come back after you delete it).

Tip: treat this folder like OpenClaw’s β€œmemory” and make it a git repo (ideally private) so your AGENTS.md + memory files are backed up. If git is installed, brand-new workspaces are auto-initialized.

openclaw setup

Full workspace layout + backup guide: Agent workspace Memory workflow: Memory

Optional: choose a different workspace with agents.defaults.workspace (supports ~).

{
  agent: {
    workspace: "~/.openclaw/workspace"
  }
}

If you already ship your own workspace files from a repo, you can disable bootstrap file creation entirely:

{
  agent: {
    skipBootstrap: true
  }
}

The config that turns it into β€œan assistant”

OpenClaw defaults to a good assistant setup, but you’ll usually want to tune:

  • persona/instructions in SOUL.md
  • thinking defaults (if desired)
  • heartbeats (once you trust it)

Example:

{
  logging: { level: "info" },
  agent: {
    model: "anthropic/claude-opus-4-5",
    workspace: "~/.openclaw/workspace",
    thinkingDefault: "high",
    timeoutSeconds: 1800,
    // Start with 0; enable later.
    heartbeat: { every: "0m" }
  },
  channels: {
    whatsapp: {
      allowFrom: ["+15555550123"],
      groups: {
        "*": { requireMention: true }
      }
    }
  },
  routing: {
    groupChat: {
      mentionPatterns: ["@openclaw", "openclaw"]
    }
  },
  session: {
    scope: "per-sender",
    resetTriggers: ["/new", "/reset"],
    reset: {
      mode: "daily",
      atHour: 4,
      idleMinutes: 10080
    }
  }
}

Sessions and memory

  • Session files: ~/.openclaw/agents/<agentId>/sessions/{{SessionId}}.jsonl
  • Session metadata (token usage, last route, etc): ~/.openclaw/agents/<agentId>/sessions/sessions.json (legacy: ~/.openclaw/sessions/sessions.json)
  • /new or /reset starts a fresh session for that chat (configurable via resetTriggers). If sent alone, the agent replies with a short hello to confirm the reset.
  • /compact [instructions] compacts the session context and reports the remaining context budget.

Heartbeats (proactive mode)

By default, OpenClaw runs a heartbeat every 30 minutes with the prompt: Read HEARTBEAT.md if it exists (workspace context). Follow it strictly. Do not infer or repeat old tasks from prior chats. If nothing needs attention, reply HEARTBEAT_OK. Set agents.defaults.heartbeat.every: "0m" to disable.

  • If HEARTBEAT.md exists but is effectively empty (only blank lines and markdown headers like # Heading), OpenClaw skips the heartbeat run to save API calls.
  • If the file is missing, the heartbeat still runs and the model decides what to do.
  • If the agent replies with HEARTBEAT_OK (optionally with short padding; see agents.defaults.heartbeat.ackMaxChars), OpenClaw suppresses outbound delivery for that heartbeat.
  • Heartbeats run full agent turns β€” shorter intervals burn more tokens.
{
  agent: {
    heartbeat: { every: "30m" }
  }
}

Media in and out

Inbound attachments (images/audio/docs) can be surfaced to your command via templates:

  • {{MediaPath}} (local temp file path)
  • {{MediaUrl}} (pseudo-URL)
  • {{Transcript}} (if audio transcription is enabled)

Outbound attachments from the agent: include MEDIA:<path-or-url> on its own line (no spaces). Example:

Here’s the screenshot.
MEDIA:/tmp/screenshot.png

OpenClaw extracts these and sends them as media alongside the text.

Operations checklist

openclaw status          # local status (creds, sessions, queued events)
openclaw status --all    # full diagnosis (read-only, pasteable)
openclaw status --deep   # adds gateway health probes (Telegram + Discord)
openclaw health --json   # gateway health snapshot (WS)

Logs live under /tmp/openclaw/ (default: openclaw-YYYY-MM-DD.log).

Next steps

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