The Simple Breakdown:

• Chatbots Talk: You ask a question, and they give you a text response.
• OpenClaw Acts: You give a command, and it performs a task.

Example Use Case:

Instead of just asking an AI to "write a script for a website," you tell OpenClaw to "Build the website," and it will:

1. Create the folder on your hard drive or a remote cloud instance if OpenClaw has access to the correct SSH keys.
2. Write the HTML and CSS files.
3. Launch a local/live server so you can view it.

What are the Components?

• A Linux VM to host the OpenClaw service/application.
  • We’ll use the OpenClaw Docker container for this series of labs.
  • A local Ubuntu VM will work great for this, but if you get used to having the AI assistant in your pocket like me, you’ll want to run it on something that is on 24/7.
    • Cloud instances work well if you don’t have a computer at home and you are willing to leave it running.
• A Telegram Account. (We’ll use Telegram as our comms channel for OpenClaw in these labs)
  • Telegram is Free.
  • You’ll use this to send instructions to OpenClaw
  • Note: Discord, Slack, and other channels work just as well!
• An LLM with some horsepower under the hood!
  • You can purchase API credits from companies such as Kimi, Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google.
  • You can run a local model, but that requires a fairly high upfront cost right now.
  • My Opinion: Purchasing API credits is well worth it. For ~$20 a month (Depending on how often you use it; I use it daily for assistance, and $20/mo is about right), you benefit from some pretty extreme computing infrastructure on the back end.

OpenClaw Flow Chart

Example Use Cases:

• Home Network/Device Troubleshooting
  • Just last night, I had a laptop with a fresh Kali Linux Installation.
    • The wired worked fine.
    • The wireless, not so much. (Older laptop)
  • I gave OpenClaw Access via SSH keys.
    • I asked it to bring up the Wireless and gave it the AP and credentials it needed.
    • It had the WIFI on in about 2 minutes.
• Research-Based Tasks
  • If you have made it this far, you may know that I write labs on CVEs and exploit techniques.
  • I need new ideas all the time!
  • OpenClaw Prompt:

    • ‘Every day at 5:00 am do a web search for recent CVEs that are related to open source projects. I am definitely interested in Linux and web-based exploits. CVSS scores of 7 or higher are of interest. I write cyber labs as you, OpenClaw, already know. I am looking for lab ideas. Please propose useful labs that I might consider writing based on your research as well as detailed CVE information. Utilize the KEV catalog and NVD as resources for sure. Please email me the results.’

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                                       **Telegram OpenClaw Prompt**
      

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                                          **Email Received (Approximately 2 Minutes Later)**