coderClaw

Building a personal assistant with CoderClaw

CoderClaw extends CoderClaw’s multi-channel gateway (WhatsApp + Telegram + Discord + iMessage) with distributed runtime capabilities and enhanced security. This guide covers the “personal assistant” setup: one dedicated WhatsApp number that behaves like your always-on agent.

⚠️ Safety first

You’re putting an agent in a position to:

Start conservative:

Prerequisites

You want this:

flowchart TB
    A["<b>Your Phone (personal)<br></b><br>Your WhatsApp<br>+1-555-YOU"] -- message --> B["<b>Second Phone (assistant)<br></b><br>Assistant WA<br>+1-555-ASSIST"]
    B -- linked via QR --> C["<b>Your Mac (coderclaw)<br></b><br>Pi agent"]

If you link your personal WhatsApp to CoderClaw, every message to you becomes “agent input”. That’s rarely what you want.

5-minute quick start

  1. Pair WhatsApp Web (shows QR; scan with the assistant phone):
coderclaw channels login
  1. Start the Gateway (leave it running):
coderclaw gateway --port 18789
  1. Put a minimal config in ~/.coderclaw/coderclaw.json:
{
  channels: { whatsapp: { allowFrom: ["+15555550123"] } },
}

Now message the assistant number from your allowlisted phone.

When onboarding finishes, we auto-open the dashboard and print a clean (non-tokenized) link. If it prompts for auth, paste the token from gateway.auth.token into Control UI settings. To reopen later: coderclaw dashboard.

Give the agent a workspace (AGENTS)

CoderClaw reads operating instructions and “memory” from its workspace directory.

By default, CoderClaw uses ~/.coderclaw/workspace as the agent workspace, and will create it (plus starter AGENTS.md, SOUL.md, TOOLS.md, IDENTITY.md, USER.md, HEARTBEAT.md) automatically on setup/first agent run. BOOTSTRAP.md is only created when the workspace is brand new (it should not come back after you delete it). MEMORY.md is optional (not auto-created); when present, it is loaded for normal sessions. Subagent sessions only inject AGENTS.md and TOOLS.md.

Tip: treat this folder like CoderClaw’s “memory” and make it a git repo (ideally private) so your AGENTS.md + memory files are backed up. If git is installed, brand-new workspaces are auto-initialized.

coderclaw setup

Full workspace layout + backup guide: Agent workspace Memory workflow: Memory

Optional: choose a different workspace with agents.defaults.workspace (supports ~).

{
  agent: {
    workspace: "~/.coderclaw/workspace",
  },
}

If you already ship your own workspace files from a repo, you can disable bootstrap file creation entirely:

{
  agent: {
    skipBootstrap: true,
  },
}

The config that turns it into “an assistant”

CoderClaw defaults to a good assistant setup, but you’ll usually want to tune:

Example:

{
  logging: { level: "info" },
  agent: {
    model: "anthropic/claude-opus-4-6",
    workspace: "~/.coderclaw/workspace",
    thinkingDefault: "high",
    timeoutSeconds: 1800,
    // Start with 0; enable later.
    heartbeat: { every: "0m" },
  },
  channels: {
    whatsapp: {
      allowFrom: ["+15555550123"],
      groups: {
        "*": { requireMention: true },
      },
    },
  },
  routing: {
    groupChat: {
      mentionPatterns: ["@coderclaw", "coderclaw"],
    },
  },
  session: {
    scope: "per-sender",
    resetTriggers: ["/new", "/reset"],
    reset: {
      mode: "daily",
      atHour: 4,
      idleMinutes: 10080,
    },
  },
}

Sessions and memory

Heartbeats (proactive mode)

By default, CoderClaw runs a heartbeat every 30 minutes with the prompt: Read HEARTBEAT.md if it exists (workspace context). Follow it strictly. Do not infer or repeat old tasks from prior chats. If nothing needs attention, reply HEARTBEAT_OK. Set agents.defaults.heartbeat.every: "0m" to disable.

{
  agent: {
    heartbeat: { every: "30m" },
  },
}

Media in and out

Inbound attachments (images/audio/docs) can be surfaced to your command via templates:

Outbound attachments from the agent: include MEDIA:<path-or-url> on its own line (no spaces). Example:

Here’s the screenshot.
MEDIA:https://example.com/screenshot.png

CoderClaw extracts these and sends them as media alongside the text.

Operations checklist

coderclaw status          # local status (creds, sessions, queued events)
coderclaw status --all    # full diagnosis (read-only, pasteable)
coderclaw status --deep   # adds gateway health probes (Telegram + Discord)
coderclaw health --json   # gateway health snapshot (WS)

Logs live under /tmp/coderclaw/ (default: coderclaw-YYYY-MM-DD.log).

Next steps

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