OpenClaw Installation - 101 Things to Know

Your AI assistant deserves a proper home - and in April 2026 the install story changed again.

OpenClaw v2026.4.x brings a new curl installer, rootless containers, a Bun CLI-only mode, MoltWorker on Cloudflare, NemoClaw on NVIDIA hardware, and a revamped onboarding wizard. This revised edition of Book 2 in the OpenClaw series rewrites 41+ chapters from the ground up so every command, flag, and config path matches what ships today. Whether you run a laptop, a homelab, a Kubernetes cluster, or an Oracle Always Free VM, this manual walks you from an empty shell to a running, hardened agent.

101 focused chapters across eight parts. No fluff, no marketing filler - just the exact steps, config files, and troubleshooting moves you need.

• macOS - Homebrew tap, menu bar agent, launchd, TCC permissions, Apple Silicon specifics
• Linux - curl installer, systemd units, Nix flake, Podman rootless, distribution notes for Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, Arch, NixOS
• Windows - native installer, WSL2 networking, PowerShell profiles, scheduled tasks, firewall rules
• Docker and Podman - official images, Compose stacks, rootless mode, volume permissions, UFW iptables gotchas
• Cloud - Oracle Always Free, DigitalOcean, Fly.io WireGuard, MoltWorker on Cloudflare Workers, NemoClaw on NVIDIA OpenShell
• Configuration - openclaw.json hot reload, reverse proxies (Caddy, Nginx, Tailscale), the doctor command, 19 diagnostic categories
• Keys, models, and channels - Anthropic, OpenAI, Gemini, xAI, local Llama 3.3 and DeepSeek-R1; MCP servers; Slack, Discord, Signal, iMessage, and Feishu setup

• Pick the right deployment vector for your hardware, budget, and privacy stance
• Install and update OpenClaw safely on nine distinct platforms
• Harden your agent with sandboxing, deny-by-default tool policies, and SSRF protection
• Wire up multiple LLM providers and fall back to local inference when needed
• Connect chat channels, register MCP servers, and manage credentials cleanly
• Read logs, run the doctor command, and resolve the most common install failures fast
• Roll back a bad update without losing memory, dreaming state, or plugin settings

If you are a developer, SRE, homelab operator, or power user who wants a single, current, platform-agnostic reference for installing OpenClaw the right way, start here. Open the book, pick your platform, and have a working agent before the next coffee.