Clawdbot Comprehensive Guide: Features, Use Cases, and Installation Tutorial

In the thriving era of AI Agents, have you ever dreamed of having a personal AI assistant that is cross-platform, privacy-protecting, and highly customizable? Clawdbot is exactly such a compelling open-source tool.

Special Note: Clawdbot (an open-source assistant developed by Peter Steinberger) and ClaudeBot (Anthropic’s web crawler) are two completely different concepts. This article focuses on Clawdbot, guiding you through how to use it to build your private digital butler.

This Article Covers:

• Definition of Clawdbot: What it is and how it fundamentally differs from the web crawler ClaudeBot.
• Core Features: Unified messaging interface, local privacy protection, browser automation, etc.
• Practical Use Cases: From mobile office to smart home control.
• Detailed Installation Tutorial: Steps for local installation via NPM and server deployment via Docker.

What is Clawdbot?

Clawdbot is an open-source, Local-First personal AI assistant. Its core philosophy is to let AI truly “reside” on your device or private server and serve you through the messaging apps you use daily (such as WhatsApp, Telegram, Discord, Slack, etc.).

Unlike AI assistants that rely entirely on cloud SaaS services, Clawdbot emphasizes data control and local execution capabilities. It can not only chat but also control browsers via “tools”, execute local scripts, and even collaborate with other Agents. The project’s open-source address is GitHub - clawdbot/clawdbot.

Core Comparison: Clawdbot vs. ClaudeBot

To avoid confusion, let’s first clarify the differences between these two terms:

5 Core Features of Clawdbot

The power of Clawdbot lies in its connectivity and extensibility:

1. Unified Messaging Interface

   • You can talk to Clawdbot via WhatsApp, Telegram, Discord, Slack, Signal, and even iMessage.
   • It exists as a “contact” in your friends list, ready at any time without opening a specific App.

2. Local & Private

   • Clawdbot can run on your MacBook, home server, or NAS.
   • Chat logs and sensitive data can be configured for local storage, significantly reducing privacy risks.

3. Powerful Interaction Modes

   • Voice Mode: Supports voice wake-up and continuous conversation (Talk Mode), especially suitable for mobile use.
   • Live Canvas: Through A2UI technology, Clawdbot can generate visual dashboards or workspaces within chats, allowing you to control complex UI elements directly through the chat interface.

4. Browser Control & Automation

   • Built-in puppeteer/playwright capabilities allow controlling local Chrome browsers to execute web tasks (e.g., “Check tomorrow’s weather and send me a screenshot,” or “Monitor the price change of this webpage”).

5. Multi-Agent Collaboration

   • It can route conversations to different “personas” or sub-Agents based on task types, enabling more complex task flows.

4 Typical Use Cases

Clawdbot is not just a chatbot; it acts more like a hub connecting your digital life:

1. Mobile Office Assistant

When you are away from your computer, send a voice command to Clawdbot via Telegram: “Organize the meeting minutes mentioned just now and add them to my Notion to-do list.” Clawdbot will call the API to complete the task.

2. Smart Home Control Center

Deployed on a home server, Clawdbot can integrate with Home Assistant. You can say on WhatsApp: “I’m almost home, turn on the AC and living room lights,” and Clawdbot translates this into local execution commands.

3. Information Aggregation & Briefing

Set scheduled tasks for Clawdbot to automatically crawl specific tech news sources or GitHub Trending every morning, summarizing them into a briefing sent to your Signal account.

4. Cross-Platform Message Bridge

It can act as a bridge between different chat software or as a unified inbox, helping you filter and summarize messages from different platforms.

Installation and Deployment Guide

Clawdbot is developed based on Node.js and supports multiple deployment methods. Here are the two most common methods.

Prerequisites

• Node.js Environment: Requires version v22 or higher.
• API Key: Prepare API Keys from OpenAI, Anthropic, or other LLM providers.
• Messaging App Token: Such as Telegram Bot Token.

Method 1: Install via NPM (Recommended for Local Testing)

This is the fastest way to get started, suitable for quick experience on a personal computer.

1. Global Install Clawdbot Open terminal and run:

   npm install -g clawdbot@latest

2. Initialize and Configure Run the onboarding wizard, which helps identify API Keys and required adapters:

   clawdbot onboard --install-daemon

   During this process, you need to choose which platform (e.g., Telegram) to interact with the bot through and provide the corresponding Token.

3. Start Service After configuration, start Clawdbot:

   clawdbot start

Method 2: Docker Deployment (Recommended for Server/NAS)

If you want Clawdbot online 24/7, Docker is the best choice.

1. Create Configuration File Create a directory on your server and a new docker-compose.yml:

   version: '3.8'
   services:
     clawdbot:
       image: ghcr.io/clawdbot/clawdbot:latest
       container_name: clawdbot
       restart: unless-stopped
       environment:
         - NODE_ENV=production
         - OPENAI_API_KEY=your_key_here
         # Add tokens for other platforms, e.g.:
         - TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN=your_telegram_token
       volumes:
         - ./data:/root/.clawdbot  # Persist config and data

2. Start Container Run in the directory:

   docker-compose up -d

3. Verify Status Check logs to ensure service started normally:

   docker logs -f clawdbot

Summary and Suggestions

Through this article, you should have a clear understanding of Clawdbot. It is not just a simple chatbot but a powerful, scalable private AI infrastructure.

Key Takeaways:

1. Distinguish Clearly: Clawdbot is your private butler; ClaudeBot is Anthropic’s crawler.
2. Local-First: Data is in your own hands.
3. Multi-Platform Interoperability: WhatsApp, Telegram, and other common IMs can be connected.

For developers, Clawdbot provides an excellent open-source example of how to ground LLM capabilities into specific IM scenarios from the cloud. Deploy your first private AI assistant now!