OpenClaw QuickStart (2): Install and First Chat in 10 Minutes

The README claims five minutes. I will say ten — the extra five is for the Node version mistake almost everyone makes the first time.

Prerequisites

• Node v22.16 or newer. The project really means it. Older Node will install but the gateway throws on optional chaining in some places. I run v24 because that’s the recommended track.
• About 2 GB free RAM at runtime, more if you load big skills.
• An LLM API key from one of: DashScope (free tier works), Anthropic, OpenAI, or the Aliyun Bailian Coding Plan (200元/month for eight models).

Check Node first:

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node -v
# v24.0.x — good
# v20.x.x — too old, see next block

If you are stuck on something old, install nvm:

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curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvm-sh/nvm/v0.40.0/install.sh | bash
source ~/.bashrc
nvm install 24
nvm use 24

That is the one foot-gun. From here it’s smooth.

Install OpenClaw

Two flavors — npm global, or the curl-bash. I prefer npm because I want to know where the binary lives:

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npm install -g @anthropic-ai/openclaw@latest
openclaw --version
# 2026.3.13

(Yes, the npm scope is @anthropic-ai. The project’s relationship with that org is a long story; the short version is “trademark history, harmless now”.)

Onboard

Run the onboarding wizard. It writes a config file into ~/.openclaw/:

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openclaw onboard

It will ask:

1. What to call the agent — I pick something memorable so I can scold it by name in chat. Mine is Lobster.
2. What it should call you — I use my actual handle, not “Boss”. Helps when reading logs.
3. Which provider — pick the one whose key you have. I’ll use DashScope for this walkthrough since it has a free tier.
4. The API key.
5. The default model — qwen-plus is the right default for general use.

The wizard writes to ~/.openclaw/openclaw.json. You can edit by hand later.

Start the gateway

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openclaw gateway start

You should see something like:

[gateway] listening on http://127.0.0.1:18789
[agent] loaded skills: 17
[memory] index ready (0 entries)
[channels] none configured (yet)

The gateway is a long-running process. In the next pieces we attach channels and skills to it. For now it is sitting there with no input.

TUI: talk to it from your terminal

Open a second terminal and run:

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openclaw tui

You get a chat-like terminal UI. Try a few things in order:

Hi — introduce yourself in one sentence.

Read the file ~/.zshrc and tell me what aliases I have.

Make a directory ~/openclaw-test and create a file
notes.md inside with the words "first run" in it.

Three things should happen:

1. The first message returns a one-liner — model is talking.
2. The second triggers the read tool — the agent asks the gateway to read a file, and you see a tool-call line scroll past in the gateway log.
3. The third actually mutates your filesystem. Verify with ls ~/openclaw-test/.

If all three worked, the install is done. If only the first worked, the agent isn’t getting access to tools — most likely the model you picked is too small to do tool-calling reliably. Switch to qwen-plus or qwen3-max and try again.

Web dashboard (optional, useful)

There’s a web UI if you prefer:

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openclaw web start
# open http://127.0.0.1:18790

I leave this off most of the time — TUI is faster — but it is useful for inspecting memory and skill state visually. It also shows the cron jobs once you have any.

What just happened, architecturally

your terminal --(stdin)--> openclaw tui
                                |
                                v
                         openclaw gateway   :18789
                                |
                +---------------+-------------------+
                |               |                   |
                v               v                   v
            agent loop     skills index      tool registry
                |
                v
         LLM provider (DashScope, Anthropic, ...)

tui is just a thin client. The gateway is where the agent loop lives. That separation is what lets you later attach Telegram, DingTalk, or the web UI as alternate front-ends, all talking to the same agent.

Next piece, we open up that gateway and look at what’s actually happening when you type a message.