Leonis Forge
🦞 OpenClaw — Installation & Migration Guide
The original open-source AI agent gateway. Maintained fork continues development — but we recommend Hermes Agent for new users.
🤔 What is OpenClaw?
OpenClaw was the first popular open-source AI agent gateway — it could run shell commands, connect to messaging platforms, call LLMs, and schedule cron jobs. It pioneered the "AI agent in your terminal + chat apps" paradigm.
Current status: The original NousResearch project was rebranded as Hermes Agent. A maintained community fork continues at openclaw/openclaw (v2026.5.7). It still works great for gateway/messaging use cases.
📦 Installing OpenClaw
Install via npm
OpenClaw is distributed as an npm package:
npm install -g openclaw
Current version: 2026.5.7 · Repository: openclaw/openclaw (maintained fork of the original NousResearch project)
Set up API key
Create a ~/.openclaw/.env file with your LLM provider key:
mkdir -p ~/.openclawecho 'OPENROUTER_API_KEY=sk-or-...' >> ~/.openclaw/.env
Supports: OpenRouter, Anthropic, OpenAI.
Start the agent
openclaw
openclaw chat -q "Write a hello world in Rust"
🔄 Migrating from OpenClaw → Hermes Agent
If you already have OpenClaw set up, migrating to Hermes takes one command:
⚡ The migration command
hermes claw migrate
What it migrates:
Your API keys, model settings, and preferences.
Past conversation history preserved.
Custom tools and tool configurations.
Scheduled tasks moved over automatically.
⚠️ Note: Migration is one-way and irreversible — back up ~/.openclaw/ first if you want to keep a copy. Run hermes claw migrate after installing Hermes Agent (see Hermes guide).
📊 OpenClaw vs Hermes Agent
| Feature | 🦞 OpenClaw | ☤ Hermes |
|---|---|---|
| LLM Providers | 3-4 | 18+ |
| Self-learning Skills | ❌ | ✅ |
| Persistent Memory | ❌ | ✅ |
| Multi-platform Gateway | ❌ | ✅ (10+) |
| Cron Scheduler | ✅ | ✅ |
| Voice (STT/TTS) | ❌ | ✅ |
| MCP Server Support | ❌ | ✅ |
| Active Development | Community maintained | ✅ Active (Nous) |
| Code Execution | ✅ | ✅ |
⭐ Our Verdict
OpenClaw pioneered the AI agent gateway concept and still works well today — a community fork keeps it updated (v2026.5.7). But Hermes Agent took the core ideas and added game-changing features: self-learning skills, persistent memory, 18+ providers, voice, and MCP support.
If you need a battle-tested gateway for messaging channels → OpenClaw works great. If you want the future of AI agents → install Hermes Agent. If you're on OpenClaw → hermes claw migrate and you're done in seconds.