Secure OpenClaw is a personal assistant that you talk to from your existing messaging apps. A gateway process receives messages from WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, or iMessage and hands them to a coding-agent backend with tool access, so the assistant can read and edit files, run commands, remember facts between conversations, schedule reminders, and act on third-party apps through Composio.
Two AI providers are supported. The Claude Agent SDK provider requires Claude Code and an Anthropic API key and offers Opus 4.6, Sonnet 4.5, and Haiku 4.5. The Opencode provider runs or connects to a local Opencode server and offers models such as GPT-5 Nano, GLM-4.7, Grok Code, and MiniMax M2.1. You switch providers from the CLI menu or config.js, and /model switches models within a provider during terminal chat.
The gateway runs locally or on a remote Linux server with Docker Compose (a 1 GB droplet with swap is the documented baseline); terminal chat is local only. Each platform has allowlists for direct messages and groups, and messages from unrecognised senders are dropped. The agent runs in default permission mode, so tool use that needs approval is sent to you as a message and resolved by your next reply, with a two-minute timeout.
Memory lives in a ~/secure-openclaw/ folder: a MEMORY.md for long-term preferences, people, and decisions, plus daily logs and topic notes. It is loaded at the start of every conversation and written only when you ask the assistant to remember something. Node.js 18+ is required.
Features
- Messaging channels: WhatsApp (QR-code link, no bot token), Telegram (BotFather token), Signal (signal-cli), and iMessage (macOS with the imsg CLI)
- Providers: Claude Agent SDK or Opencode, switchable at runtime
- Tool approvals: approval prompts and AskUserQuestion options are relayed as chat messages
- Persistent memory: MEMORY.md, daily logs, and topic files with /memory, /memory list, and /memory search commands
- Scheduling: one-time delays and cron-expression jobs persisted in cron-jobs.json and run while the gateway is up
- App integrations: Composio access to Gmail, Google Calendar, Sheets, Drive, Slack, Discord, GitHub, GitLab, Jira, Linear, Notion, Trello, Asana, Salesforce, HubSpot, X, LinkedIn, and more, with a per-app authorisation link on first use
- Allowlists: per-platform DM and group allowlists plus a mention-only option for groups
- Chat commands: /new, /status, /queue, /stop, and /help
- Remote deployment: Docker Compose with auth and memory in volumes and a health endpoint on port 4096
