First 7 Days with OpenClaw

Seven self-contained guides that take you from a first conversation to a hardened, automated setup. Each takes under an hour; do one a day or several in an afternoon. Every command and config block was checked against OpenClaw v2026.10.4.

Day	What You'll Learn	Time
Day 1: Make It Yours	Edit the workspace files that shape your agent, and have your first real conversation	30 min
Day 2: Your Daily Driver	Put it to work — summaries, research, file management	30 min
Day 3: Set It Free	Schedule automations (morning briefings, checks) and tune the heartbeat monitor	45 min
Day 4: Supercharge It	Use bundled skills and install community skills from ClawHub	30 min
Day 5: Be Everywhere	Connect multiple platforms and control who can talk to the bot	45 min
Day 6: Build Your Own	Create custom skills, set up automations, go multi-agent	60 min
Day 7: Lock It Down	Security hardening, backups, updates, cost and monitoring	45 min

tip

Already past the basics? Jump to whatever day matches your level. Each guide stands alone.

Prerequisites

• OpenClaw installed and onboarded. openclaw onboard (or the installer's Quick start) verifies your model access, starts the Gateway and seeds the workspace files used on Day 1. See Getting started.
• The Gateway running. openclaw gateway status should show it listening on port 18789, and openclaw status shows channel health.
• A way to talk to the bot. The Control UI (openclaw dashboard) and the terminal UI (openclaw tui) work with no extra setup. For your phone, Telegram is the easiest first channel: it is bundled with OpenClaw and needs only a bot token (Telegram setup).
• An owner set for proactive messages. Approving your own first Telegram DM with openclaw pairing approve sets commands.ownerAllowFrom for you; Day 3 explains why it matters.

openclaw gateway status
openclaw status
openclaw dashboard

Read this before Day 2

Out of the box, OpenClaw runs shell commands without asking (tools.exec.mode defaults to full) and the sandbox is off. That suits a single trusted operator on a personal machine, but you should know it before you ask the bot to move or delete files. Day 2 shows how to turn on approvals; Day 7 covers the full hardening checklist.

What You'll Have After Day 7

• A personalized AI assistant with a distinct identity
• Scheduled briefings and checks that message you
• Multiple chat platforms connected, with access control
• Bundled and community skills installed and checked
• At least one custom skill you built yourself
• A hardened, backed-up, cost-aware setup