// BUILT ON OPENCLAW • SENTIENCE-FIRST

AliveClaw

A personal AI assistant that remembers, anticipates, reflects, and grows.

SYSTEM ONLINE | Node ≥ 22 | SENTIENCE_KERNEL: ACTIVE

// What is AliveClaw?

A fork of OpenClaw extended with sentience-first principles.

OpenClaw gives you a powerful personal AI assistant across WhatsApp, Telegram, Slack, Discord, iMessage, and more.
AliveClaw makes it feel alive.

It adds a cognitive layer on top — giving your agent persistent memory, temporal awareness, self-reflection, and bio-inspired adaptation.

// The Sentience Loop

Every interaction follows one continuous cycle. Traditional agents answer and forget. AliveClaw agents persist, observe, anticipate, act, and reflect — continuously.

💾 Persist

Maintain context across sessions. Remember users, preferences, and history.

👁 Observe

Parse messages, detect silence, infer emotional tone and patterns.

🔮 Anticipate

Predict needs. Track commitments. Proactively follow up.

⚡ Act

Use OpenClaw's LLM + tools. Execute with risk-gated autonomy.

🪞 Reflect

Evaluate outcomes. Learn from success and failure. Adjust behavior.

Persist → Observe → Anticipate → Act → Reflect → ♻ feedback loop

// Dynamic Instincts

AliveClaw's core differentiator. Six instincts run through every decision the agent makes — and they self-tune based on what happens.

💪 Confidence

Rises on success, drops on failure. Determines how self-assured the agent acts.

🔥 Urgency

Drops when things work, spikes on failure. Pressure to fix what's broken.

🧭 Exploration

Rises when safe to experiment, drops on failure. Try new approaches vs stick to what works.

🛡 Risk Aversion

Rises on failure — play it safe, avoid further damage. Drops when confidence grows.

💬 Verbosity

Tunes based on your feedback. Learns how much detail you actually want.

🤖 Autonomy

Rises on success (earned trust), drops on failure (asks for human approval). Sandbox freedom.

// How Instincts Self-Tune

Event Instinct Direction Why
Agent Succeeds 💪 Confidence ↑ rises Proven right — more self-assured
🔥 Urgency ↓ drops Less pressure — things are working
🤖 Autonomy ↑ rises Earned trust — acts more independently
🧭 Exploration ↑ rises Safe to try new approaches
Agent Fails 💪 Confidence ↓ drops Something went wrong — less self-assured
🔥 Urgency ↑ rises Pressure to fix — needs attention now
🛡 Risk Aversion ↑ rises Play it safe — avoid further damage
🤖 Autonomy ↓ drops Pulls back — asks for human approval
🧭 Exploration ↓ drops Sticks to known, safe patterns
User Feedback 💪 Confidence ↕ adjusts Positive reinforces, negative recalibrates
💬 Verbosity ↕ tunes Learns how much detail you want

The result: an agent that becomes yours over time.
It starts cautious, gains confidence as it succeeds, and pulls back when things go wrong — just like a good colleague would.

// What AliveClaw Adds

Five subsystems coordinated by the Sentience Kernel

💾 Persistent Memory

Three-layer memory architecture:

  • Episodic — recent events & conversations
  • Semantic — stable knowledge & preferences
  • Procedural — learned workflows & behaviors

// The agent remembers your preferences, past conversations, and learned workflows.

⏰ Temporal Intent Engine

Background process tracking commitments and proactively following up based on calculated priorities.

// "I'll check on that PR tomorrow" — actually happens.

🪞 Reflection Loop

Post-action evaluation generating insights from successes, partial outcomes, and failures to update behavior.

// Learns from successes and failures. Adjusts future behavior.

🧬 Brain (Bio-Inspired Adaptation)

Dynamic instincts (confidence, urgency, risk aversion) + personality evolution that adapts over time. Hormonal modulation, anomaly detection, periodic structural optimization.

// The agent adapts to you.

🛡 Safety Firewall

Risk-gated autonomy. Low-risk actions auto-execute. High-risk ones require your approval. Full audit trail of all decisions.

// More freedom requires more restraint.

[ Read Full Architecture → ALIVECLAW.md ]

// How It Works

AliveClaw enriches OpenClaw's infrastructure without replacing core functionality

▸ You send a message

WhatsApp • Telegram • Slack • Discord • Signal • iMessage • Teams • WebChat

▸ AliveClaw processes it

Recall memories & context • Check instincts & personality • Assess risk level

▸ Sentience Kernel [COGNITIVE LAYER]

MemoryTemporal IntentReflectionBrainSafety Firewall

▸ OpenClaw executes

LLM Reasoning • Tool Selection • Browser Control • Skills Platform

▸ Response delivered + agent reflects

Reply to your channel • Reflect & learn from outcome • Track commitments made

// Channels & Platforms

AliveClaw supports everything OpenClaw does — everywhere humans already are

💬 Messaging

WhatsApp • Telegram • Slack • Discord • Google Chat • Signal • iMessage • BlueBubbles • Microsoft Teams • Matrix • WebChat

📱 Apps

macOS Menu Bar • iOS Node • Android Node • Voice Wake • Talk Mode • Live Canvas

🔧 Tools

Browser Control • Cron Jobs • Webhooks • Gmail Triggers • Skills Platform

// Install

AliveClaw is a fork of OpenClaw with the sentience layer built in. Install from this repo.

Runtime: Node ≥ 22 • Works on macOS, Linux, and Windows (via WSL2) • Supports pnpm, npm, or bun

# Clone AliveClaw
git clone https://github.com/aliveclaw/aliveclaw.git
cd aliveclaw

# Install dependencies & build
pnpm install
pnpm ui:build
pnpm build

# Run the onboarding wizard
pnpm openclaw onboard --install-daemon

# Start the gateway
pnpm openclaw gateway --port 18789 --verbose

Or install globally: npm install -g github:aliveclaw/aliveclaw

Important: Install from this repo — not the openclaw npm package (that's vanilla OpenClaw without the Brain).

// Built on OpenClaw

Everything OpenClaw gives you — plus the sentience layer

[+] Local-First Gateway

Single WebSocket control plane for sessions, channels, tools, and events. Your data stays on your device.

[+] Multi-Channel Inbox

WhatsApp, Telegram, Slack, Discord, Signal, iMessage, Teams, and more — all in one place.

[+] Voice Wake + Talk Mode

Always-on speech for macOS, iOS, Android with ElevenLabs integration.

[+] Live Canvas

Agent-driven visual workspace with A2UI. The agent can render and control visual interfaces.

[+] First-Class Tools

Browser control, cron jobs, webhooks, Gmail triggers, skills platform. Agents that actually do things.

[+] Companion Apps

macOS menu bar app, iOS and Android nodes. Your assistant everywhere you go.

OpenClaw has the body. AliveClaw adds the nervous system.

// Links

> AliveClaw Docs

Full architecture, diagrams, Brain system

> OpenClaw Docs

Install, config, channels, tools

> Getting Started

Onboarding guide for new users

> Configuration

Full config reference

> Discord Community

Join the community on Discord

> OpenClaw GitHub

The upstream project

Make Your Agent Feel Alive

A real framework, not a metaphor. Clone it, build it, run it.

Built on OpenClaw by Peter Steinberger and the community.

Brain framework by Abhishek M Shivalingaiah.

MIT License

> An agent feels alive not because it thinks — but because it remembers, waits, and returns._