Setting Up OpenClaw as an Always-On AI Assistant

OpenClaw is configured as an always-on AI assistant for a small dev team. It's hosted on a Railway server, ensuring constant accessibility beyond individual local machines. The Large Language Model (LLM) backend used is Opus 4.5 from Claude. Interaction primarily occurs through WhatsApp via the built-in gateway.

Integration and Features

• Google Workspace: Gmail, Calendar, Drive, and Sheets are integrated for a wide range of administrative tasks.
• GitHub: Manages pull requests, issues, commits, and repository access.
• Gamma: Facilitates presentation generation.
• Railway: Handles deployment processes.
• Brave Search: Employed for web lookups and research tasks.
• Custom Scripts: Extends functionality beyond standard integrations.

Memory and Check-ins

A simple Postgres database is set up to manage memory and check-ins. It maintains conversation history per user, handles daily check-ins through cron jobs, and retains context across sessions. This allows OpenClaw to follow up on ongoing tasks effectively.

Cron Jobs and Task Automation

OpenClaw supports scheduled tasks via cron jobs. It automates daily standup prompts, periodic check-ins with team members, and a nightly summary of the day's events written to a separate logging database.

Challenges and Use Cases

Integrating cron jobs required careful timing to avoid session collisions. Privacy issues were addressed to prevent context leaks between users. Despite these challenges, OpenClaw is adept at handling tasks such as research with summaries, scheduling meetings, summarizing PRs, monitoring commits, correlating meeting notes to code files, spinning up new apps, and drafting emails.