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Your own personal AI agent

OpenClaw is open source. This guide sets up a private agent just for you — one person, one device, no one else. No user management, no pairing flows, no multi-tenant anything.

~$20–40

/mo total

AI model API key ~$20/mo (Claude, GPT, etc.) + VPS ~$10/mo (or free with Oracle Cloud) + WhatsApp number ~$10/mo if needed. Telegram is free.

01

Provision a server

You can run this on your existing machine or a small VPS. For a VPS, Ubuntu 22.04/24.04 with 2 cores and 2 GB RAM is the minimum. Oracle Cloud's free tier (4 ARM cores, 24 GB RAM) works great. DigitalOcean, Hetzner, and Vultr start around $10/mo. Do not run as root — create a dedicated user.

02

Install OpenClaw

OpenClaw requires Node.js 24 (recommended) or Node 22 LTS. Install it globally and run the onboarding wizard to install the background daemon. Config lives at ~/.openclaw/openclaw.json.

# Install Node 24
nvm install 24 && nvm use 24

# Install OpenClaw
npm install -g openclaw@latest

# Run onboarding
openclaw onboard --install-daemon
03

Pick a channel

Pick the app you want to message your agent from. This is the most important decision.

TelegramRecommended
  • ✓Official Telegram Bot API — built for this
  • ✓No extra phone number needed
  • ✓Zero ban risk
  • ✓Free forever
# Create a bot at t.me/BotFather, get your token
# Then add it to ~/.openclaw/openclaw.json:
# { channels: { telegram: { token: "YOUR_BOT_TOKEN" } } }

# Log in and start
openclaw channels login --channel telegram
openclaw gateway
WhatsAppRisky
  • ⚠Requires a dedicated phone number you don't use for anything else
  • ⚠QR code pairing uses the Baileys library to reverse-engineer the WhatsApp Web protocol. WhatsApp's Terms of Service explicitly state that using an unofficial or modified application "is a violation of WhatsApp's policy and may lead to an account being blocked." (faq.whatsapp.com/5957850900902049)
  • ⚠As of Jan 15 2026, Meta has also banned general-purpose AI assistants on the official Business API — so there is no compliant path to a personal AI agent on WhatsApp at all right now.
Official WhatsApp policy on unauthorized automated access
# You need a spare number. Then:
openclaw channels login --channel whatsapp
# Scan the QR code with your dedicated number
openclaw gateway
04

Start the gateway

The gateway is the background process that keeps your channel connections open and routes your messages to the AI. The dashboard runs on port 18789 — keep it private. Tailscale (free for personal use) gives you secure access from your phone or laptop.

# Start the gateway
openclaw gateway

# Or, on a server, run it as a daemon
openclaw gateway --daemonize

# Secure the dashboard with Tailscale (free)
curl -fsSL https://tailscale.com/install.sh | sh && tailscale up
# Dashboard is now at http://<tailscale-ip>:18789

Full reference at docs.openclaw.ai

Want it on WhatsApp without the ban risk or the setup?

View managed plans →