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Core Concepts

Before diving deeper, understand these five core components that make OpenClaw work.

The Gateway​

The Gateway is the central nervous system — a single long-running process that orchestrates everything.

openclaw gateway

It provides:

  • A WebSocket control plane on port 18789 (default)
  • Bridges between the Brain (LLM) and Hands (execution)
  • Channel management for all connected messaging platforms
  • The heartbeat loop for autonomous operation

The Gateway is designed to run as a daemon (background service) that starts on boot.

The Brain (Reasoning Engine)​

The Brain is the LLM that powers OpenClaw's intelligence:

  • Makes API calls to your chosen provider (Anthropic, OpenAI, xAI, or local)
  • Handles multi-step reasoning and task decomposition
  • Decides what to do based on context and instructions
  • Model-agnostic — swap providers without changing your setup

The Hands (Execution Environment)​

The Hands are what let OpenClaw do things:

  • Shell access — Run commands, install packages, manage processes
  • File system — Read, write, modify files anywhere on your machine
  • Browser automation — Fill forms, scrape pages, interact with web apps
  • API calls — Hit any HTTP endpoint, manage webhooks
warning

The Hands have the same permissions as the user running OpenClaw. This is powerful but dangerous. See Security Hardening for how to limit access.

The Memory System​

OpenClaw remembers things across conversations using local Markdown files:

~/.openclaw/
├── memory/
│   ├── preferences.md    # Your preferences and habits
│   ├── contacts.md       # People it's learned about
│   ├── projects.md       # Active projects and context
│   └── learnings.md      # Things it's figured out
├── HEARTBEAT.md          # Autonomous task definitions
└── config.yml            # Main configuration

Memory is:

  • Persistent — Survives restarts and updates
  • Local — Never sent to any cloud service
  • Human-readable — It's just Markdown, you can edit it directly
  • Growing — The agent builds context over time

The Heartbeat​

The Heartbeat is what makes OpenClaw autonomous rather than just reactive.

Every N minutes (default: 30), the Gateway sends the agent a heartbeat prompt. The agent:

  1. Reads HEARTBEAT.md for defined tasks
  2. Checks for pending work (unread messages, monitored events)
  3. Either responds HEARTBEAT_OK (nothing to do) or takes action

This enables proactive behaviors like:

  • Monitoring your inbox and flagging urgent messages
  • Watching GitHub repos for new issues
  • Running scheduled tasks (daily summaries, reports)
  • Alerting you about system events

How They Fit Together​

Skills​

Skills are OpenClaw's extension system. Each skill is a Markdown file with YAML frontmatter that defines:

  • What the skill does
  • When to activate it
  • What tools it needs
  • How to execute
skills/weather.md
---
name: weather-briefing
trigger: "weather|forecast|temperature"
tools: [web-search, chat]
---

# Weather Briefing

When asked about weather, search for current conditions
and provide a concise briefing with temperature, conditions,
and any weather alerts.

Skills can be installed from ClawHub or written from scratch. See Skill Development for details.

Next Steps​