🦀 ZeroClaw — Personal AI Assistant

Zero overhead. Zero compromise. 100% Rust. 100% Agnostic.
⚡️ Runs on $10 hardware with <5MB RAM: That's 99% less memory than OpenClaw and 98% cheaper than a Mac mini!

Built by students and members of the Harvard, MIT, and Sundai.Club communities.

ZeroClaw is a personal AI assistant you run on your own devices. It answers you on the channels you already use (WhatsApp, Telegram, Slack, Discord, Signal, iMessage, Matrix, IRC, Email, Bluesky, Nostr, Mattermost, Nextcloud Talk, DingTalk, Lark, QQ, Reddit, LinkedIn, Twitter, MQTT, WeChat Work, and more). It has a web dashboard for real-time control and can connect to hardware peripherals (ESP32, STM32, Arduino, Raspberry Pi). The Gateway is just the control plane — the product is the assistant.

If you want a personal, single-user assistant that feels local, fast, and always-on, this is it.

Website · Docs · Architecture · Getting Started · Migrating from OpenClaw · Troubleshoot · Discord

Preferred setup: run zeroclaw onboard in your terminal. ZeroClaw Onboard guides you step by step through setting up the gateway, workspace, channels, and provider. It is the recommended setup path and works on macOS, Linux, and Windows (via WSL2). New install? Start here: Getting started

Subscription Auth (OAuth)

• OpenAI Codex (ChatGPT subscription)
• Gemini (Google OAuth)
• Anthropic (API key or auth token)

Model note: while many providers/models are supported, for the best experience use the strongest latest-generation model available to you. See Onboarding.

Models config + CLI: Providers reference Auth profile rotation (OAuth vs API keys) + failover: Model failover

Install (recommended)

Runtime: Rust stable toolchain. Single binary, no runtime dependencies.

Homebrew (macOS/Linuxbrew)

brew install zeroclaw

One-click bootstrap

git clone https://github.com/morpheum-labs/zeroclaw.git
cd zeroclaw
.script/install.sh

zeroclaw onboard runs automatically after install to configure your workspace and provider.

Quick start (TL;DR)

Full beginner guide (auth, pairing, channels): Getting started

Detailed command lines (non-interactive install, gateway ports, daemon, auth, completions): Quick start command reference

./install.sh
zeroclaw gateway
zeroclaw agent -m "Hello, ZeroClaw!"
zeroclaw status
zeroclaw doctor

Upgrading? Run zeroclaw doctor after updating.

From source (development)

git clone https://github.com/morpheum-labs/zeroclaw.git
cd zeroclaw

cargo build --release --locked
cargo install --path . --force --locked

zeroclaw onboard

Build notes, cargo clean, and running without a global install (cargo run --release --): Quick start command reference.

Migrating from OpenClaw

ZeroClaw can import your OpenClaw workspace, memory, and configuration:

# Preview what will be migrated (safe, read-only)
zeroclaw migrate openclaw --dry-run

# Run the migration
zeroclaw migrate openclaw

This migrates your memory entries, workspace files, and configuration from ~/.openclaw/ to ~/.zeroclaw/. Config is converted from JSON to TOML automatically.

Security defaults (DM access)

ZeroClaw connects to real messaging surfaces. Treat inbound DMs as untrusted input.

Full security guide: SECURITY.md

Default behavior on all channels:

• DM pairing (default): unknown senders receive a short pairing code and the bot does not process their message.
• Approve with: zeroclaw pairing approve <channel> <code> (then the sender is added to a local allowlist).
• Public inbound DMs require an explicit opt-in in config.toml.
• Run zeroclaw doctor to surface risky or misconfigured DM policies.

Autonomy levels:

Level	Behavior
ReadOnly	Agent can observe but not act
Supervised (default)	Agent acts with approval for medium/high risk operations
Full	Agent acts autonomously within policy bounds

Sandboxing layers: workspace isolation, path traversal blocking, command allowlisting, forbidden paths (/etc, /root, ~/.ssh), rate limiting (max actions/hour, cost/day caps).

📢 Announcements

Use this board for important notices (breaking changes, security advisories, maintenance windows, and release blockers).

Date (UTC)	Level	Notice	Action
2026-02-19	Critical	We are not affiliated with openagen/zeroclaw, zeroclaw.org or zeroclaw.net. The zeroclaw.org and zeroclaw.net domains currently points to the openagen/zeroclaw fork, and that domain/repository are impersonating our official website/project.	Do not trust information, binaries, fundraising, or announcements from those sources. Use only this repository and our verified social accounts.
2026-02-21	Important	Our official website is now live: zeroclawlabs.ai. Thanks for your patience while we prepared the launch. We are still seeing impersonation attempts, so do not join any investment or fundraising activity claiming the ZeroClaw name unless it is published through our official channels.	Use this repository as the single source of truth. Follow X (@zeroclawlabs), Facebook (Group), and Reddit (r/zeroclawlabs) for official updates.
2026-02-19	Important	Anthropic updated the Authentication and Credential Use terms on 2026-02-19. Claude Code OAuth tokens (Free, Pro, Max) are intended exclusively for Claude Code and Claude.ai; using OAuth tokens from Claude Free/Pro/Max in any other product, tool, or service (including Agent SDK) is not permitted and may violate the Consumer Terms of Service.	Please temporarily avoid Claude Code OAuth integrations to prevent potential loss. Original clause: Authentication and Credential Use.

Highlights

• Lean Runtime by Default — common CLI and status workflows run in a few-megabyte memory envelope on release builds.
• Cost-Efficient Deployment — designed for $10 boards and small cloud instances, no heavyweight runtime dependencies.
• Fast Cold Starts — single-binary Rust runtime keeps command and daemon startup near-instant.
• Portable Architecture — one binary across ARM, x86, and RISC-V with swappable providers/channels/tools.
• Local-first Gateway — single control plane for sessions, channels, tools, cron, SOPs, and events.
• Multi-channel inbox — WhatsApp, Telegram, Slack, Discord, Signal, iMessage, Matrix, IRC, Email, Bluesky, Nostr, Mattermost, Nextcloud Talk, DingTalk, Lark, QQ, Reddit, LinkedIn, Twitter, MQTT, WeChat Work, WebSocket, and more.
• Multi-agent orchestration (Hands) — autonomous agent swarms that run on schedule and grow smarter over time.
• Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) — event-driven workflow automation with MQTT, webhook, cron, and peripheral triggers.
• Web Dashboard — React 19 + Vite web UI with real-time chat, memory browser, config editor, cron manager, and tool inspector.
• Hardware peripherals — ESP32, STM32 Nucleo, Arduino, Raspberry Pi GPIO via the Peripheral trait.
• First-class tools — shell, file I/O, browser, git, web fetch/search, MCP, Jira, Notion, Google Workspace, and 70+ more.
• Lifecycle hooks — intercept and modify LLM calls, tool executions, and messages at every stage.
• Skills platform — bundled, community, and workspace skills with security auditing.
• Tunnel support — Cloudflare, Tailscale, ngrok, OpenVPN, and custom tunnels for remote access.

Why teams pick ZeroClaw

• Lean by default: small Rust binary, fast startup, low memory footprint.
• Secure by design: pairing, strict sandboxing, explicit allowlists, workspace scoping.
• Fully swappable: core systems are traits (providers, channels, tools, memory, tunnels).
• No lock-in: OpenAI-compatible provider support + pluggable custom endpoints.

Benchmark Snapshot (ZeroClaw vs OpenClaw, Reproducible)

Local machine quick benchmark (macOS arm64, Feb 2026) normalized for 0.8GHz edge hardware.

	OpenClaw	NanoBot	PicoClaw	ZeroClaw 🦀
Language	TypeScript	Python	Go	Rust
RAM	> 1GB	> 100MB	< 10MB	< 5MB
Startup (0.8GHz core)	> 500s	> 30s	< 1s	< 10ms
Binary Size	~28MB (dist)	N/A (Scripts)	~8MB	~8.8 MB
Cost	Mac Mini $599	Linux SBC ~$50	Linux Board $10	Any hardware $10

Notes: ZeroClaw results are measured on release builds using /usr/bin/time -l. OpenClaw requires Node.js runtime (typically ~390MB additional memory overhead), while NanoBot requires Python runtime. PicoClaw and ZeroClaw are static binaries. The RAM figures above are runtime memory; build-time compilation requirements are higher.

Reproducible local measurement

cargo build --release
ls -lh target/release/zeroclaw

/usr/bin/time -l profiling for the binary: Quick start command reference.

Everything we built so far

Core platform

• Gateway HTTP/WS/SSE control plane with sessions, presence, config, cron, webhooks, web dashboard, and pairing.
• CLI surface: gateway, agent, onboard, doctor, status, service, migrate, auth, cron, channel, skills.
• Agent orchestration loop with tool dispatch, prompt construction, message classification, and memory loading.
• Session model with security policy enforcement, autonomy levels, and approval gating.
• Resilient provider wrapper with failover, retry, and model routing across 20+ LLM backends.

Channels

Channels: WhatsApp (native), Telegram, Slack, Discord, Signal, iMessage, Matrix, IRC, Email, Bluesky, DingTalk, Lark, Mattermost, Nextcloud Talk, Nostr, QQ, Reddit, LinkedIn, Twitter, MQTT, WeChat Work, WATI, Mochat, Linq, Notion, WebSocket, ClawdTalk.

Feature-gated: Matrix (channel-matrix), Lark (channel-lark), Nostr (channel-nostr).

Web dashboard

React 19 + Vite 6 + Tailwind CSS 4 web dashboard served directly from the Gateway:

• Dashboard — system overview, health status, uptime, cost tracking
• Agent Chat — interactive chat with the agent
• Memory — browse and manage memory entries
• Config — view and edit configuration
• Cron — manage scheduled tasks
• Tools — browse available tools
• Logs — view agent activity logs
• Cost — token usage and cost tracking
• Doctor — system health diagnostics
• Integrations — integration status and setup
• Pairing — device pairing management

External dashboard (optional): set [webui].external_path in config.toml (or ZEROCLAW_WEBUI_EXTERNAL_PATH, or zeroclaw gateway start --webui-external-path /path/to/web/dist) to serve the built UI from disk. When the path is missing or invalid, the gateway falls back to embedded web/dist/. Use POST /api/webui/reload or /webui reload in gateway chat to re-scan the path without restarting. To build a slimmer binary without embedded assets, compile with default features minus embedded-web-ui and always supply a valid external dist/ at runtime.

Firmware targets

Target	Platform	Purpose
ESP32	Espressif ESP32	Wireless peripheral agent
ESP32-UI	ESP32 + Display	Agent with visual interface
STM32 Nucleo	STM32 (ARM Cortex-M)	Industrial peripheral
Arduino	Arduino	Basic sensor/actuator bridge
Uno Q Bridge	Arduino Uno	Serial bridge to agent

Tools + automation

• Core: shell, file read/write/edit, git operations, glob search, content search
• Web: browser control, web fetch, web search, screenshot, image info, PDF read
• Integrations: Jira, Notion, Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, LinkedIn, Composio, Pushover, Weather (wttr.in)
• MCP: Model Context Protocol tool wrapper + deferred tool sets
• Scheduling: cron add/remove/update/run, schedule tool
• Memory: recall, store, forget, knowledge, project intel
• Advanced: delegate (agent-to-agent), swarm, model switch/routing, security ops, cloud ops
• Hardware: board info, memory map, memory read (feature-gated)

Runtime + safety

• Autonomy levels: ReadOnly, Supervised (default), Full.
• Sandboxing: workspace isolation, path traversal blocking, command allowlists, forbidden paths, Landlock (Linux), Bubblewrap.
• Rate limiting: max actions per hour, max cost per day (configurable).
• Approval gating: interactive approval for medium/high risk operations.
• E-stop: emergency shutdown capability.
• 129+ security tests in automated CI.

Ops + packaging

• Web dashboard served directly from the Gateway.
• Tunnel support: Cloudflare, Tailscale, ngrok, OpenVPN, custom command.
• Docker runtime adapter for containerized execution.
• CI/CD: beta (auto on push) → stable (manual dispatch) → Docker, crates.io, Scoop, AUR, Homebrew, tweet.
• Pre-built binaries for Linux (x86_64, aarch64, armv7), macOS (x86_64, aarch64), Windows (x86_64).

Configuration

Minimal ~/.zeroclaw/config.toml:

default_provider = "anthropic"
api_key = "sk-ant-..."

Full configuration reference: docs/reference/api/config-reference.md.

Channel configuration

Telegram:

[channels.telegram]
bot_token = "123456:ABC-DEF..."

Discord:

[channels.discord]
token = "your-bot-token"

Slack:

[channels.slack]
bot_token = "xoxb-..."
app_token = "xapp-..."

WhatsApp:

[channels.whatsapp]
enabled = true

Matrix:

[channels.matrix]
homeserver_url = "https://matrix.org"
username = "@bot:matrix.org"
password = "..."

Signal:

[channels.signal]
phone_number = "+1234567890"

Tunnel configuration

[tunnel]
kind = "cloudflare"  # or "tailscale", "ngrok", "openvpn", "custom", "none"

Details: Channel reference · Config reference

Runtime support (current)

• native (default) — direct process execution, fastest path, ideal for trusted environments.
• docker — full container isolation, enforced security policies, requires Docker.

Set runtime.kind = "docker" for strict sandboxing or network isolation.

Subscription Auth (OpenAI Codex / Claude Code / Gemini)

ZeroClaw supports subscription-native auth profiles (multi-account, encrypted at rest).

• Store file: ~/.zeroclaw/auth-profiles.json
• Encryption key: ~/.zeroclaw/.secret_key
• Profile id format: <provider>:<profile_name> (example: openai-codex:work)

Login, refresh, and zeroclaw agent --provider … examples: Quick start command reference.

Agent workspace + skills

Workspace root: ~/.zeroclaw/workspace/ (configurable via config).

Injected prompt files:

• IDENTITY.md — agent personality and role
• USER.md — user context and preferences
• MEMORY.md — long-term facts and lessons
• AGENTS.md — session conventions and initialization rules
• SOUL.md — core identity and operating principles

Skills: ~/.zeroclaw/workspace/skills/<skill>/SKILL.md or SKILL.toml.

zeroclaw skills list

Install, audit, and remove: Quick start command reference.

CLI commands

Common invocations (gateway, agent, service, channels, cron, memory, migration): Quick start command reference.

Full commands reference: docs/reference/cli/commands-reference.md

Prerequisites

Windows

Required

1. Visual Studio Build Tools (provides the MSVC linker and Windows SDK):

   winget install Microsoft.VisualStudio.2022.BuildTools

   During installation (or via the Visual Studio Installer), select the "Desktop development with C++" workload.

2. Rust toolchain:

   winget install Rustlang.Rustup

   After installation, open a new terminal and run rustup default stable to ensure the stable toolchain is active.

3. Verify both are working:

   rustc --version
   cargo --version

Optional

• Docker Desktop — required only if using the Docker sandboxed runtime (runtime.kind = "docker"). Install via winget install Docker.DockerDesktop.

Linux / macOS

Required

1. Build essentials:

   • Linux (Debian/Ubuntu): sudo apt install build-essential pkg-config
   • Linux (Fedora/RHEL): sudo dnf group install development-tools && sudo dnf install pkg-config
   • macOS: Install Xcode Command Line Tools: xcode-select --install

2. Rust toolchain:

   curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh

   See rustup.rs for details.

3. Verify both are working:

   rustc --version
   cargo --version

One-Line Installer

Or skip the steps above and install everything (system deps, Rust, ZeroClaw) in a single command:

curl -LsSf https://raw.githubusercontent.com/morpheum-labs/zeroclaw/master/install.sh | bash

Compilation resource requirements

Building from source needs more resources than running the resulting binary:

Resource	Minimum	Recommended
RAM + swap	2 GB	4 GB+
Free disk	6 GB	10 GB+

Pre-built install flags (--prefer-prebuilt, --prebuilt-only, and more): one-click bootstrap.

Optional

• Docker — required only if using the Docker sandboxed runtime (runtime.kind = "docker"). Install via your package manager or docker.com.

Note: The default cargo build --release uses codegen-units=1 to lower peak compile pressure. For faster builds on powerful machines, use cargo build --profile release-fast.

Pre-built binaries

Release assets are published for:

• Linux: x86_64, aarch64, armv7
• macOS: x86_64, aarch64
• Windows: x86_64

Download the latest assets from: https://github.com/morpheum-labs/zeroclaw/releases/latest

Docs

Use these when you're past the onboarding flow and want the deeper reference.

• Start with the docs index for navigation and "what's where."
• Read the architecture overview for the full system model.
• Use the configuration reference when you need every key and example.
• Run the Gateway by the book with the operational runbook.
• Follow ZeroClaw Onboard for a guided setup.
• Debug common failures with the troubleshooting guide.
• Review security guidance before exposing anything.

Reference docs

• Documentation hub: docs/README.md
• Unified docs TOC: docs/SUMMARY.md
• Commands reference: docs/reference/cli/commands-reference.md
• Config reference: docs/reference/api/config-reference.md
• Providers reference: docs/reference/api/providers-reference.md
• Channels reference: docs/reference/api/channels-reference.md
• Operations runbook: docs/ops/operations-runbook.md
• Troubleshooting: docs/ops/troubleshooting.md

Collaboration docs

• Contribution guide: CONTRIBUTING.md
• PR workflow policy: docs/contributing/pr-workflow.md
• CI workflow guide: docs/contributing/ci-map.md
• Reviewer playbook: docs/contributing/reviewer-playbook.md
• Security disclosure policy: SECURITY.md
• Documentation template: docs/contributing/doc-template.md

Deployment + operations

• Network deployment guide: docs/ops/network-deployment.md
• Proxy agent playbook: docs/ops/proxy-agent-playbook.md
• Hardware guides: docs/hardware/README.md

Smooth Crab 🦀

ZeroClaw was built for the smooth crab 🦀, a fast and efficient AI assistant. Built by Argenis De La Rosa and the community.

• zeroclawlabs.ai
• @zeroclawlabs

Support ZeroClaw

If ZeroClaw helps your work and you want to support ongoing development, you can donate here:

🙏 Special Thanks

A heartfelt thank you to the communities and institutions that inspire and fuel this open-source work:

• Harvard University — for fostering intellectual curiosity and pushing the boundaries of what's possible.
• MIT — for championing open knowledge, open source, and the belief that technology should be accessible to everyone.
• Sundai Club — for the community, the energy, and the relentless drive to build things that matter.
• The World & Beyond 🌍✨ — to every contributor, dreamer, and builder out there making open source a force for good. This is for you.

We're building in the open because the best ideas come from everywhere. If you're reading this, you're part of it. Welcome. 🦀❤️

Contributing

New to ZeroClaw? Look for issues labeled good first issue — see our Contributing Guide for how to get started. AI/vibe-coded PRs welcome! 🤖

See CONTRIBUTING.md and CLA.md. Implement a trait, submit a PR:

• CI workflow guide: docs/contributing/ci-map.md
• New Provider → src/providers/
• New Channel → src/channels/
• New Observer → src/observability/
• New Tool → src/tools/
• New Memory → src/memory/
• New Tunnel → src/tunnel/
• New Peripheral → src/peripherals/
• New Skill → ~/.zeroclaw/workspace/skills/<name>/

⚠️ Official Repository & Impersonation Warning

This is the only official ZeroClaw repository:

https://github.com/morpheum-labs/zeroclaw

Any other repository, organization, domain, or package claiming to be "ZeroClaw" or implying affiliation with ZeroClaw Labs is unauthorized and not affiliated with this project. Known unauthorized forks will be listed in TRADEMARK.md.

If you encounter impersonation or trademark misuse, please open an issue.

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License

ZeroClaw is dual-licensed for maximum openness and contributor protection:

License	Use case
MIT	Open-source, research, academic, personal use
Apache 2.0	Patent protection, institutional, commercial deployment

You may choose either license. Contributors automatically grant rights under both — see CLA.md for the full contributor agreement.

Trademark

The ZeroClaw name and logo are trademarks of ZeroClaw Labs. This license does not grant permission to use them to imply endorsement or affiliation. See TRADEMARK.md for permitted and prohibited uses.

Contributor Protections

• You retain copyright of your contributions
• Patent grant (Apache 2.0) shields you from patent claims by other contributors
• Your contributions are permanently attributed in commit history and NOTICE
• No trademark rights are transferred by contributing

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ZeroClaw — Zero overhead. Zero compromise. Deploy anywhere. Swap anything. 🦀

Contributors

This list is generated from the GitHub contributors graph and updates automatically.

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