🦞 Clawders

The community guide to running OpenClaw securely, affordably, and efficiently

🎯 What is Clawders?

Clawders is a community-maintained guide for installing and running OpenClaw — securely, affordably, and with minimal friction.

OpenClaw is a powerful AI agent framework, but its attack surface is large and its security posture requires careful attention. This repo aggregates real-world community experience, official documentation, and security research so you don't have to learn things the hard way.

This guide helps you:

🔒 Minimize risk — proper isolation, burner accounts, and hardened configurations
👤 Get started easily — step-by-step instructions from basic to advanced
💰 Save money — free model providers and token-efficient settings

⚠️ Critical Security Warning

OpenClaw security vulnerabilities are by design. The attack surface is every input. There is currently no way to fully secure its usage.

These guides help minimize the blast radius if something goes wrong. The golden rule:

Treat OpenClaw like an untrusted contractor with access to whatever you give it.

📁 Repository Contents

| Path | Description | |------|-------------| | openclaw/ | OpenClaw guides — installation, security hardening, and tips | | claudecode/ | Claude Code guides — configuration, plugins, skills, and workflows | | claw-code/ | Claw Code — an open agent harness built on OpenClaw | | terminal/ | Terminal setup — Wezterm, Starship, and CLI tools |

🚀 Quick Start: Install OpenClaw (Free, in 30 seconds)

The fastest way to get started with OpenClaw using the MiniMax M2.1 model — completely free:

curl -fsSL skyler-agent.github.io/oclaw/i.sh | bash

This one-command installer:

✅ Automatically configures MiniMax M2.1 (free tier)
✅ No manual API key setup required
✅ Includes optimized "7-day Coding Plan" presets
✅ Works out of the box on Linux/macOS

📺 See it in action (Twitter/X) — 73K+ views

🔒 Essential Security Checklist

Before you install OpenClaw, you MUST do the following:

| Step | Why It Matters | |------|----------------| | ✅ Use a dedicated machine | If compromised, only that machine is affected | | ✅ Create a burner email | Don't expose your real inbox | | ✅ Create a new GitHub account | Use PATs with limited scope | | ✅ Use a burner phone/SIM | For WhatsApp/Telegram integration | | ❌ Never connect primary email | Full inbox access = full compromise | | ❌ Never connect banking/financial | No exceptions, ever | | ❌ Never connect password managers | Would expose all your credentials |

The Freelancer Test™

Before connecting any service, ask yourself: "Would I give this access to a random freelancer I just hired online?"

If the answer is NO → Don't give it to OpenClaw.

💰 Free & Token-Efficient Model Options

A community member once spent $0.60 just saying "hi" with default Anthropic settings. Don't be that person.

Free Options

| Provider | Model | Notes | |----------|-------|-------| | MiniMax M2.1 | MiniMax M2.1 | Use the one-command installer above | | NVIDIA NIM | MiniMax, Kimi K2.5 | Free tier at build.nvidia.com | | Ollama | qwen2.5, llama3, etc. | 100% local — ollama.com |

Token Usage Limit

Set a hard limit on context tokens to prevent runaway costs:

openclaw config set agents.defaults.contextTokens 25000

🛡️ Security Tools & Resources

openclaw-shield — Blocks secret/PII leakage and destructive commands
awesome-openclaw — Curated list of tools, guides, and integrations

🤝 Contributing

Found a tip that saved you hours? A security practice worth sharing? PRs are welcome!

📜 Credits

This guide was compiled from community wisdom, official OpenClaw docs, and security research from JFrog, Composio, DigitalOcean, and VentureBeat.

Special thanks to:

@steipete — OpenClaw founder
@SkylerMiao7 — one-command installer author
Knostic team — openclaw-shield security tooling

<p align="center"> <strong>Stay secure. Stay efficient. Stay clawed. 🦞</strong> </p>

Clawders

Install / Use

README