Install

Runtime: Node 22 or later.

Recommended: npm + onboarding wizard

npm install -g openclaw@latest
# or: pnpm add -g openclaw@latest

openclaw onboard --install-daemon

--install-daemon installs the Gateway as a user service (launchd on macOS, systemd on Linux) so it stays running across reboots.

Other install paths

OpenClaw ships installers and platform recipes for the most common targets. See the upstream guides for full details:

• Docker — install/docker.md in the repo.
• Nix — declarative config with the nix-openclaw flake.
• Ansible — install/ansible.md.
• Podman — install/podman.md plus setup-podman.sh at the repo root.
• Cloud one-clicks — Fly, Render, Railway, Northflank, Hetzner, GCP, DigitalOcean.
• Bun runtime — install/bun.md (optional; pnpm preferred for builds from source).

Verifying the install

openclaw --version
openclaw doctor

openclaw doctor is the canonical validation command: it surfaces risky/misconfigured DM policies and other runtime issues.

Next

• Quick start — minimal commands to send your first message.
• Onboarding wizard — the recommended guided setup.
• Updating — staying current and switching channels.