build-your-own-openclaw

Author: czl9707 Repo: https://github.com/czl9707/build-your-own-openclaw Language: Python (94.7%) License: MIT Stars: 917 Fetched: 2026-04-09

Description

"A step-by-step tutorial to build your own AI agent, from a simple chat loop to a lightweight version of OpenClaw."

OpenClaw is a pun on Claude Code. The tutorial walks through building a Claude Code-style coding agent from scratch in 18 progressive steps grouped into 4 phases. Each step has documentation plus executable code. A reference implementation called pickle-bot ships alongside the tutorial.

Phase breakdown

Phase 1 — Single agent capability (steps 0-6) Chat loop, tool integration, skill extension via documentation, conversation persistence, user commands, history compression/compaction, web access. The minimum viable coding agent.

Phase 2 — Event architecture (steps 7-10) Event system, configuration hot-reloading, multi-channel support, WebSocket integration. Moves from a single-session CLI process to an always-on service that can be reached from multiple frontends.

Phase 3 — Autonomous & collaborative (steps 11-15) Intelligent agent routing, scheduled tasks via cron, multi-layer prompting, bidirectional messaging, agent-to-agent dispatch. The agent gains the ability to run on its own schedule and coordinate with other agents.

Phase 4 — Production readiness (steps 16-17) Concurrency management, persistent memory systems.

Tech

• Uses LiteLLM for multi-provider LLM abstraction — write once, run against any supported backend
• Python, MIT-licensed
• Configuration via example config file that users populate with provider credentials