What’s Clawdbot? How a Native First Agent Stack Turns Chats into Actual Automations

Clawdbot is an open supply private AI assistant that you simply run by yourself {hardware}. It connects massive language fashions from suppliers similar to Anthropic and OpenAI to actual instruments similar to messaging apps, recordsdata, shell, browser and good house units, whereas preserving the orchestration layer underneath your management.

The fascinating half is just not that Clawdbot chats. It’s that the undertaking ships a concrete structure for native first brokers, and a typed workflow engine referred to as Lobster that turns mannequin calls into deterministic pipelines.

Structure: Gateway, Nodes and Abilities

On the heart of Clawdbot is the Gateway course of. The Gateway exposes a WebSocket management aircraft on ws://127.0.0.1:18789 and a neighborhood HTTP interface for the management UI and net chat.

Your messages from WhatsApp, Telegram, Sign, Slack, Discord, iMessage and different channels are delivered to the Gateway. The Gateway decides which agent ought to deal with the message, which instruments it might name, and which mannequin supplier to make use of. It then sends the reply again over the identical channel.

The runtime is break up into just a few core ideas:

• Gateway: Routing, mannequin calls, software invocation, periods, presence and scheduling.
• Nodes: Processes that give Clawdbot entry to native assets similar to file system, browser automation, microphone, digital camera or platform particular APIs on macOS, Home windows, Linux, iOS and Android.
• Channels: Integrations for chat techniques like WhatsApp, Telegram, Discord, Slack, Sign, Microsoft Groups, Matrix, Zalo and extra. These are configured as channel backends that connect to the Gateway.
• Abilities and plugins: Instruments that the agent can name, described in a regular SKILL.md format and distributed by ClawdHub.

This separation allows you to run the Gateway on a 5 greenback digital server or a spare machine at house, whereas preserving heavy mannequin compute on distant APIs or native mannequin backends when wanted.

Abilities and the SKILL.md normal

Clawdbot makes use of an open expertise format described in SKILL.md. A ability is outlined in Markdown with a small header and an ordered process. For instance, a deployment ability would possibly specify steps similar to checking git standing, operating exams and deploying solely after success.

---
identify: deploy-production
description: Deploy the present department to manufacturing. Use solely after exams move.
disable-model-invocation: true
---
1. Test git standing guaranteeing clear working listing.
2. Run `npm check`
3. If exams move, run `npm run deploy`

The Gateway reads these definitions and exposes them to brokers as instruments with express capabilities and security constraints. Abilities are printed to ClawdHub and could be put in or composed into bigger workflows.

Which means operational runbooks can transfer from ad-hoc wiki pages into machine executable expertise, whereas nonetheless being auditable as textual content.

Lobster: Typed Workflow Runtime for Brokers

Lobster is the workflow runtime that powers Native Lobster and plenty of superior Clawdbot automations. It’s described as a typed workflow shell that lets Clawdbot run multi step software sequences as a single deterministic operation with express approval gates.

As an alternative of getting the mannequin name many instruments in a loop, Lobster strikes orchestration right into a small area particular runtime:

• Pipelines are outlined as JSON or YAML, or as a compact shell like pipeline string.
• Steps change typed JSON knowledge, not unstructured textual content.
• The runtime enforces timeouts, output limits and sandbox insurance policies.
• Workflows can pause on unwanted effects and resume later with a resumeToken.

A easy inbox triage workflow seems like this:

identify: inbox-triage
steps:
  - id: gather
    command: inbox record --json
  - id: categorize
    command: inbox categorize --json
    stdin: $gather.stdout
  - id: approve
    command: inbox apply --approve
    stdin: $categorize.stdout
    approval: required
  - id: execute
    command: inbox apply --execute
    stdin: $categorize.stdout
    situation: $approve.accepted

Clawdbot treats this file as a ability. While you ask it to wash your inbox, it calls one Lobster pipeline as an alternative of improvising many software calls. The mannequin decides when to run the pipeline and with which parameters, however the pipeline itself stays deterministic and auditable.

Native Lobster is the reference agent that makes use of Lobster to drive native workflows and is described in protection as an open supply agent that redefines private AI by pairing native first workflows with proactive habits.

Proactive native first habits

A key purpose Clawdbot is trending and visual on X and in developer communities is that it behaves like an operator, not only a chat window.

As a result of the Gateway can run scheduled jobs and observe state throughout periods, frequent patterns embrace:

• Every day briefings that summarize calendars, duties and necessary mail.
• Periodic recaps similar to weekly shipped work summaries.
• Displays that look ahead to situations, then message you first in your most well-liked channel.
• File and repository automations that run regionally however are triggered by pure language.

All of this runs with routing and gear coverage in your machine or server. Mannequin calls nonetheless go to suppliers like Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, xAI or native backends, however the assistant mind, reminiscence and integrations are underneath your management.

Set up and developer workflow

The undertaking supplies a one line installer that fetches a script from clawd.bot and bootstraps Node, the Gateway and core parts. For extra management, you may set up through npm or clone the TypeScript repository and construct with pnpm.

Typical steps:

curl -fsSL https://clawd.bot/set up.sh | bash

# or

npm i -g clawdbot
clawdbot onboard

After onboarding you join a channel similar to Telegram or WhatsApp, select a mannequin supplier and allow expertise. From there you may write your personal SKILL.md recordsdata, construct Lobster workflows and expose them by chat, net chat or the macOS companion utility.

Some Examples