Build Your Own OpenClaw

A step-by-step tutorial to build your own AI agent, from a simple chat loop to a lightweight version of OpenClaw.

Overview

18 progressive steps that teach you how to build an minimal version of OpenClaw. Each step includes:

• A README.md going through key components and design decision.
• A Runnable codebase.

Example Project: pickle-bot - our reference implementation

Tutorial Structure

Phase 1: Capable Single Agent (Steps 0-6)

Build a fully-functional agent that can chat, use tools, learn skills, remember conversations, and access the internet.

• 00-chat-loop - Just a Chat Loop
• 01-tools - Give your agent a tool.
• 02-skills - Extend your agent with SKILL.md
• 03-persistence - Save your conversations.
• 04-slash-commands - Direct user control over sessions.
• 05-compaction - Pack you history and carry on...
• 06-web-tools - Your Agent want to see the bigger world.

Phase 2: Event-Driven Architecture (Steps 7-10)

Refactor to event-driven architecture for scalability and multi-platform support.

• 07-event-driven - Expose you agent beyond CLI.
• 08-config-hot-reload - Edit without restart.
• 09-channels - Talk to your agent from on your phone.
• 10-websocket - Want to interact with you agent programatically?

Phase 3: Autonomous & Multi-Agent (Steps 11-15)

Add scheduled tasks, agent collaboration, and intelligent routing.

• 11-multi-agent-routing - Route right job to right agent.
• 12-cron-heartbeat - An Agent work while you are sleeping.
• 13-multi-layer-prompts - More Context, More Context, More Context.
• 14-post-message-back - Your Agent want to Speak to you.
• 15-agent-dispatch - Your Agent want friends to work with!

Phase 4: Production & Scale (Steps 16-17)

Features for reliability and long-term memory.

• 16-concurrency-control - Too many Pickle are running at the same time?
• 17-memory - Remember me!

How to Use This Tutorial

Configure API Keys

Before running any step, you need to configure your API keys:

1. Copy the example config:

   cp default_workspace/config.example.yaml default_workspace/config.user.yaml

2. Edit config.user.yaml with your API keys:

   • See LiteLLM providers for the full list of supported providers
   • Check out Provider Examples for some examples

3. Just follow each steps, read and try it out.

Contributing

Each step is implemented in a separate session. Feel free to suggest improvements!