Day 2: Your Daily Driver
Today you put the bot to work: summaries, research, file management, quick scripts and system checks.
Time: ~30 minutes
Type the prompts below into whichever chat you use: the Control UI (openclaw dashboard), the terminal UI (openclaw tui), or a connected channel such as Telegram. To send a single prompt from the shell, use openclaw agent --agent main --message "...".
Summarize Anything
OpenClaw can digest content from URLs, local files, or raw text you paste in. Fetching a URL uses the web_fetch tool, and the bundled summarize skill helps with long pages, videos and podcasts (web fetch).
Summarize a web page
Summarize https://news.ycombinator.com — just the top 10 stories with one-line descriptions
Summarize this article and list the 3 main takeaways: https://example.com/long-article
Summarize a local file
Summarize ~/.openclaw/workspace/SOUL.md
Read ~/Documents/meeting-notes.txt and give me the action items
Summarize a long email thread
Paste the email thread directly into chat:
Summarize this email thread and tell me what I need to respond to:
[paste email thread here]
For long content, tell the bot what you care about: "Summarize this, focusing on pricing changes" beats "Summarize this" every time.
Research Assistant
What are the main differences between SQLite, PostgreSQL, and MySQL for a small self-hosted app?
Find the current documentation for setting up Tailscale on Ubuntu 24.04
Compare Hetzner, DigitalOcean, and Vultr for a 4GB VPS — pricing, locations, and any gotchas
What's the recommended way to handle authentication in a Next.js 15 app?
The bot will search the web, pull from documentation, and synthesize what it finds. If you need it to go deeper, ask follow-up questions — the context carries between messages.
Web search needs a search provider. OpenClaw auto-detects one from the credentials you have configured; if the bot says it cannot search, set one up as described in web tools.
File Management
Managing files without memorizing find/xargs/sed incantations. These prompts move and rename real files, so read this first:
By default OpenClaw runs commands without asking, including destructive ones (deleting, moving, overwriting): tools.exec.mode defaults to full and the sandbox is off. Asking it to "show me the plan first" is a request the model may or may not honour, not a safety control.
For a real confirmation step, turn on approvals and check the result:
openclaw config set tools.exec.mode ask
openclaw exec-policy show
In ask mode, allowlisted commands run and everything else waits for you to approve it in the chat or Control UI. openclaw approvals get shows the requested policy, the host approvals file and the effective result. See permission modes and the hardening checklist.
Organize files
Sort all files in ~/Downloads into subdirectories by file type (images, documents, archives, etc.)
Find duplicates
Find duplicate files in ~/Photos based on content, not just filename
Rename batches
Rename all files in ~/screenshots to the format YYYY-MM-DD_HH-MM-SS.png based on their modification time
Create directory structures
Create a project structure for a Python CLI tool called "timetrack" with src, tests, docs, and config directories, including __init__.py files and a pyproject.toml
Quick Scripts
Need a one-off script? Describe what you want in plain language. The bot writes it, explains it, and can run it for you.
Write a bash script that backs up ~/Documents/notes to ~/backups with a timestamp
(For OpenClaw's own state, use openclaw backup create instead; copying ~/.openclaw while the Gateway runs can catch its SQLite databases mid-write. See Day 7.)
Write a Python script that reads a CSV file and outputs the rows where the "status" column is "failed"
Create a script that watches ~/Downloads for new PDF files and moves them to ~/Documents/PDFs
Write a quick API call to check if my website is returning 200 — just curl, no dependencies
The bot matches your preferred language (from USER.md) by default. Ask for a different one if you want:
Write that in Go instead
System Admin
Your bot has access to the system it's running on. Use it for quick health checks and admin tasks.
Check disk space on all partitions and warn me about anything above 80%
What processes are using the most memory right now?
Is port 8080 in use? If so, what's using it?
Show me the last 20 lines of /var/log/syslog and flag anything unusual
Install htop if it's not already installed
System access depends on the permissions of the user running OpenClaw. The bot can do anything that user can do in a terminal. If that user has passwordless sudo, the bot can install packages and change system files without asking you, unless approvals are on. Run OpenClaw as an ordinary user without passwordless sudo, turn on approvals (above), and consider the sandbox for anything that reads untrusted input.
Tips for Better Results
Be specific. "Write a script" is vague. "Write a bash script that monitors CPU temperature and logs it to ~/logs/temp.csv every 5 minutes" gives the bot everything it needs in one shot.
Give context. If you're working on a specific project, mention it: "In my Node.js app at ~/api, find all API endpoints that don't have input validation." The bot will look at the actual code, not guess.
Ask for step-by-step when you're unsure. If you want to understand what's happening, say: "Walk me through setting up a cron job, explaining each part." The bot will teach instead of just doing.
Chain tasks. The bot remembers context within a session. You can build on previous answers:
Find all large log files in /var/log
> now compress any that are older than 7 days
> create an automation that does this weekly
The last step creates an OpenClaw automation (a scheduled job inside the Gateway), not an entry in your system crontab. You'll set these up properly on Day 3.
Save recurring preferences as directives. If you always want concise answers, add a directive to ~/.openclaw/workspace/USER.md (see Day 1), or simply tell the bot "save this as a directive":
<!-- observed: 2026-10-18 | status: active -->
- Prefer concise answers with bullet points over paragraphs.
This saves you from repeating "be brief" every session.
What You've Done Today
- Summarized web pages, local files, and pasted content
- Used the bot as a research assistant
- Managed files without memorizing shell commands
- Generated and ran one-off scripts
- Ran system health checks
- Learned patterns for getting better results
You're now using OpenClaw for real work. Tomorrow you stop babysitting it.
Next: Day 3: Set It Free — schedule automations and tune the heartbeat