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If you've been seeing ClawdBot everywhere and are wondering how to set it up.
Complete tutorial on setting up OpenClaw/MoltBot AI agent on Mac Mini, covering installation, configuration, and usage tips.
Key Takeaways
- MoltBot is a powerful, self-hosted AI agent that can run continuously and perform diverse tasks.
- Choosing between a Mac Mini and VPS depends on factors like cost, security, uptime, and technical skill.
- Installation involves using terminal commands to set up dependencies and the bot itself.
- Telegram is the easiest messaging platform to start interacting with MoltBot.
- Additional skills/plugins can significantly enhance MoltBot's functionality and value.
Summary
- Introduction to ClawdBot, now renamed MoltBot, an AI agent for 24/7 autonomous tasks.
- Comparison of running MoltBot on a Mac Mini versus a VPS, including pros and cons of each.
- Step-by-step terminal commands for installing necessary tools like Homebrew, Node.js, and PNPM.
- Instructions for downloading and installing MoltBot from its official website.
- Guidance on selecting AI models and the importance of OpenAI account verification for reasoning models.
- Process for generating and entering OpenAI secret keys to connect the AI agent.
- Setup of messaging channels with a recommendation to start with Telegram due to ease of bot creation.
- Demonstration of creating a Telegram bot using BotFather and integrating its token.
- Configuring and installing additional skills/plugins from ClawdHub to extend MoltBot's capabilities.
- Tips on managing API keys for plugins and automating actions with hooks.
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
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In this video, we're going to cover exactly how to set up ClawdBot.
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Or as it's now called MoltBot, from scratch.
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We'll cover whether you should run it on a Mac Mini or a VPS, we'll go through every single terminal command that you have to run in order to get this thing going.
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And then we'll talk about some ways people are using it right now to deliver insane value, whether you are an individual or a company.
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And I'll try to focus specifically on ones that are non-obvious or go past the basic AI use cases.
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If you've always wanted your own always on AI agent, this is one of the best ways to do it.
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And if you're not familiar with ClawdBot, it is an AI agent that you run yourself, it can run 24/7, you basically set it up, connect it to an LLM, connect it to a chat, and then you message it and it can take a ton of different actions for you.
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It's like another employee that's working 24/7 to do whatever you want it to do.
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There's even a marketplace called ClawdHub where you can get different tools and plugins that other people have now built for ClawdBot.
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It's really powerful.
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With that, let's jump in.
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Now, before we install anything, you have two different places that you can run this.
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You can run it on a VPS or a virtual private server, which is on the cloud.
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Or you can run it yourself locally with something like a Mac Mini.
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It doesn't have to be a Mac Mini, it could be a Mac Studio.
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Some other computer like that, but most people are using Mac Minis.
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Now, some pros for a VPS, it is always on.
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That's great.
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You can access it from anywhere.
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And it's got a little bit cleaner separation from your personal computer.
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But there is more setup complexity, you have to be a little bit more technically skilled to set that up.
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There's also a monthly cost, which isn't super high, but if you're going to use this for a long time, it does add up.
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Especially if you want to pay for more advanced ones with better security features, which you probably will if you're using it at the highest level.
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It's also typically a bit less secure.
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You are now putting everything in the hands of someone else and they have security protocols.
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But by nature, you have to do a little bit more to secure it.
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A lot of people like Mac Mini because it's all right there, you own it locally.
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It's not connected to the cloud.
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Now, for Mac Minis, some pros.
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The setup is definitely going to be easier.
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It's great for testing and learning.
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And you own it locally, so again, it is more secure.
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It will cost more up front, so just keep that in mind.
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But depending on how long you're going to run this, it could work out.
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You also get to own it, so you have everything in house.
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Which a lot of people think is cool.
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Also, if you want a discount on a Mac Mini at Upgraded, right now we are giving away 5.25% off all Mac Minis with the code ClawdBot.
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But Mac Minis aren't perfect.
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Some of the cons are just with the uptime.
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If there's some sort of outage or the machine goes to sleep, then you do lose uptime.
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All right, now let's jump into actually setting it up.
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I'm going to go to my computer and walk you through it.
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In order to install ClawdBot, there are just a few commands that we need to run in terminal.
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So, we'll do command space.
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Open terminal.
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Now we're here.
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So, I'll tell you what these are, I'll also list them in the description.
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So, you can just copy and paste because it's pretty annoying to have to type all of these out.
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Another way to do it is just to ask ChatGPT what commands to run.
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Which is what I did here.
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So, I'll copy them from there.
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So, first, we need to install Homebrew, which just allows you to install more stuff.
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I already have these installed because I've set it up.
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Um, but just to show you what the process is.
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So, here you have to type in your password.
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It might make you do this, it might not.
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For me, it does because I'm like a secondary account on here.
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Boom.
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Return to enter.
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And then it's loading.
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Cool.
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Now that is set up.
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Second thing is we are going to install Node.js.
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So, again, just copy and paste that.
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For me, it's already installed, you might get a slightly different message.
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If you want to check if, uh, if you've installed it correctly and it's working, you can just do Node -v.
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That'll tell you the version.
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Then we're going to install PNPM.
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And then for the last part, we're going to go to ClawdBot's website.
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It has a new name, it's called MoltBot.
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Um, people still kind of call it both.
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They had to change it because Anthropic was not happy that it sounded so similar to Claude.
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Which, honestly, is fair.
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All right, so we've got that.
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We're going to go back to terminal.
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Paste that.
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And it will install.
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This could take a little bit, so just let it run through.
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It will ask you to go through a couple different selections.
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Now, when you are selecting what model to use, you can choose any model.
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Obviously, you're going to get better performance with the higher models.
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I am going to choose a lower model to save a little bit of money on compute costs.
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One thing to note though, is that if you're using OpenAI, to use any of the reasoning models, you have to have your account verified in order to use them.
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If you don't, it won't work.
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So, if you haven't done that before, make sure that you do it or just choose a different model like GPT-4 or GPT-40.
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Those aren't reasoning models.
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And then it'll work right away.
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The verification can take a little bit, so if you're trying to move quick, it's best to just avoid that.
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All right, so now what we're going to do is go and create a new secret key.
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Here again, I'm in OpenAI, but you can use a different LLM if you want.
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ClawdBot key.
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We will create our secret key.
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So, now I'm going to copy this, obviously, I'll blur it so you guys don't steal my stuff.
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But you're going to take that and you're going to enter it here.
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Then you're going to select your channel.
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So, this is how you are going to message the bot.
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What I would recommend, what most people would recommend for getting started, is going to be Telegram.
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They have the easiest bot setup.
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You don't need any sort of long approval process or things like that.
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So, if I were you, I'd start with Telegram, then you could add in something like a WhatsApp or Discord or iMessage.
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But it can be complicated.
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So, I've selected Telegram, now it's going to ask me for my Telegram bot token.
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These are pretty easy to get.
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Um, you'll just open up Telegram.
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I'm just going to download it for Mac.
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So, I've got Telegram here.
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I'm just going to search for BotFather.
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Open.
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And now I have bot from some other project, but I'm going to create a new one here.
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Call this ClawdBot.
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We'll call it Ben's ClawdBot.
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Cool.
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And that is created.
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I will copy my secret key.
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And then we're going to go back into terminal.
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We'll enter that here.
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We will select yes for configure skills now.
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And then here, when it asks what your preferred node manager for skill installs is.
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It doesn't really matter, but if you're new, I would select NPM.
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That's the best for beginners.
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So then here, it's going to ask if you want to install missing skill dependencies.
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So, these are tools that can connect to ClawdBot so that you can use them.
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And so this is up to you which ones you want to install.
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But any things that you know of that you're thinking of using, I would recommend.
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So, for example, I am going to install Apple Notes.
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And you just press, you just use the arrow keys, press space to select.
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And then enter once you're, once you're ready.
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ClawdHub.
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Like this is, you can use, um, Eat Sleep, which is cool.
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Google Workspace, that's good.
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iMessage.
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Nano Banana, I'll use.
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P.S.I.O.
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And now we will let it install.
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All right, so we've got those installed.
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And it will ask you for API keys for some of them.
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I just hit no just to make it quick, if you have those, you want to set them up right away, you can.
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Otherwise, you can add it in later.
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Then it will ask about hooks, which lets you automate actions when certain commands are issued.
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You can always change these later.
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So, it's not really a big deal right now.
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I enable the one for session memory, so that when you do slash new, it stores the session memory.
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Just so you have that for later.
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Now we're getting towards the end of this part.
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So, it's asking how you want to hatch your bot.
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I would hatch in TUI.
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So, just to make sure everything is running correctly, I'm going to run this command ClawdBot help.
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And then this sort of stuff should pop up, which shows you different commands that you can use.
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Options, things like that.
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Now you know this is working, it's set up.
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So, now you can see that the chatbot is responding.
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ClawdBot is set up, ready to go.
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So, now we can message our bot on Telegram.
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I have this set up here.
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So, I just say, "Hi, what are some cool things you can help me with?
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I'm a content marketer."
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And now it is responding.
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Now, for use cases.
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Instead of talking through each one, I'm going to throw up a list here of some of the top use cases that we're seeing.
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But the cool thing is you can get really creative here.
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Like I said, there's this thing called ClawdHub, which is a marketplace for people building different connections, different tools, different plugins that you can use with ClawdBot.
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So, this is expanding very quickly.
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And we're going to see a lot more innovation here.
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If you have any more questions, feel free to drop them in the comments.
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You can also check out the official ClawdBot Discord, there's tons of people helping there.
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I'll try to help as well in the comments.
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Overall, this is a really cool new piece of technology that's coming out.
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I'm expecting to see a lot of exciting stuff being done with it.
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It's very new, people just started talking about it like a few days ago.
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And so we have a lot of room to grow here.
Topics:MoltBotClawdBotOpenClawMac MiniAI agent setupTelegram botHomebrew installationNode.jsAI automationClawdHub plugins
