How to Build Your OpenClaw AI Agent the RIGHT Way

Michael, if you had to start over, uh, build your OpenClaw agent from scratch, how would you do it? >> Right. I think that's a really good question because I think a lot of people, you guys are, you know, experimenting with Open Claw, maybe encountering some problems, >> sometimes you're giving up. But this channel, we don't give up. Okay, we continue down because we know that OpenClaw once you tune it to a particular set of features that you want. Like say for example, OpenClaw building a presentation for me. I think that's the most successful use case I have for it where it has a daily presentation for me. I'll just show you guys this very quickly. It's just like um it builds this every day for me in the morning so I can use it on YouTube and um >> yeah, it actually actually useful not slop. Yeah. >> So producing non-stop helping me save hours on my life. How would I start this again? Yes. >> Right. And I think what we'll do in this video is we'll take you through my modern setup process. We'll set up Rocket uh from scratch and I'll show you guys a little bit about what um I find are useful. Yeah. >> So, first and foremost um just I'll just do the install while we're talking here. But you made a very big mistake. I'll let you I'll let you cover the next bit of this conversation. But you made a very big big mistake when you started, which is what? >> Which is giving it my whole life story. >> Right. Right. So, it's tempting, right? Because a lot of the open claw guides were like, "Oh, why don't you talk about how to use it?" >> Yeah. But what was wrong with that approach? >> You give it a lot of context, >> a lot of unnecessary information to carry out tasks that you really need executed. >> Mhm. >> Uh and what ends up happening and I noticed this is it would fill up my sole file. >> Mhm. >> And uh it doesn't know where to store proper information in its memory files as well. >> Yeah. So it's almost like I think yet again I think the way that we taught people on the channel was the right way which is to deploy zebra server. So we actually have a lot of these zebra servers up and running and they're very disposable. Yeah. >> So if something goes wrong uh I can just hard reset and I can say hey delete this reinstall OS and just clear everything up. So this is something that's actually very powerful that can do on Zebra. Um, and just give a give yourself a clean start because what problem I think you ran into and you complained to me a lot because we talked about this extensively, not on this channel, but I think we're going to do do more on this channel was that you're like, "Oh, >> how come you got your guy working and my guy just sucks? He's like he's an he's a >> right? He's trying to give me a daily report. He can barely just type to me, let alone make a presentation." >> Yeah. The more he knows, the dumber he gets. >> The dumber he gets, right? So he got into the dumb zone very quickly. We'll talk about the dumb zone very quickly. But it's very very prevalent with AI that they can enter a dumb zone which is why they start feeling stupid because they are okay. They've entered a dumb zone. The context is full. You you might not always be managing that context and if you're not managing context and you know that's that's something you should learn and uh we have a few videos on that on on that as well. Without getting to too much details, the way that we taught people how to run OpenClaw, I think is still the best way where we run this on a VPS. So these these are servers that are online 24/7 so they can monitor you. They're very also very cheap. We we actually literally >> uh found the cheapest servers like literally we're not showing you guys like uh >> like a like the cheapest server you can have on here uh literally is what? Not >> uh this one. This is the button here. Uh price going. Wait. Yeah. Hey, it's more expensive now. >> They upped it now. >> They upped it. They upped it. >> 2 GB 6. >> No way. >> Maybe we got it for a steal. Maybe it was Chinese New Year. >> Oh, no. No. Here. Here. No, no, no. Okay. Okay. Okay. We We clicked the wrong button here, but Okay. So, we got them for literally $2. And I still I will still stick with this. Even if I'm starting again on my open start um cloud from scratch, I'll still stick with these servers. Um the reason why is because it's dirt cheap. Okay. We're not making any money out this. I don't think Zebra's making that much money on this, but it's dirt cheap and it's very easy to restart and you don't have to give it all sectors of your life. Yeah. >> Right. Because I think that's the number one mistake a lot of people start doing when they're running Open Claw is that they >> they tell it everything about their lives. Yeah. >> Then they put it on their Mac Mini and they they and then on a Mac Mini they have all your like >> remember reminders, all your calendars, all your emails. It it fills up with everything which >> in the ideal world would be good >> but because it fills up with so much context. It starts doing stuff for you that you didn't ask for. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Right. And I think that's the number one mistake in use where like >> you're not giving it a sandbox environment. I will consider this a sandbox environment. All right. It's got its own server. Cool. It's a $2 server. Who the hell cares if it goes wrong? >> Right. And then uh I slowly start giving it information but I don't uh give it too much too fast. Okay. Right. And I don't overload the soul file. So while we're uploading the um playing with the bot here, something that you'll see and we'll connect to rocket here uh is that once you set up open claw, it has a very clear uh soul file. Let me go a and this is something show hidden files and um just to make sure that you run correctly. I understand quick start for now. I'm just I'm skipping all uh I'm skipping this for now. Uh skip for now. Okay. No. So, uh, I will still do this. I'll still go through this. And I I would also still learn how to install it on your own computer. I think this is yet again it I spent around maybe two or three days trying to learn all the commands for this. Yet again, I made a video for that, right? But one of the reasons why this is super super powerful is that you kind of know how it works. And when it doesn't perform, >> you don't give up, right? I think a lot of people they give up. They're like, "Oh, yeah. I I want to make it improve my daily scheduling. Save me a few hours here and there." And then it gave up because it started messaging the girlfriend. It started it started doing things that it shouldn't be doing, right? And then you have to just pull the plug and um it doesn't work. So, what really worked very well for me was uh creating this uh running this on a server, giving it very limited information about my life, but uh I started giving it very missionritical tasks. or not mission critical tasks. I will say like tasks that will help me improve my day which is like very specific like oh make a presentation for me and I have very specific requirements on how it should do research how it should search X how it should continue to do research so it has a good loop >> and then when it comes back with that information it's actually relevant I don't feel it's slopp >> okay >> okay so um the one the thing I wanted to show you here um yet again we have a full video uh I I know maybe recently I'm starting to refer back to my old videos a bit but Um uh just to show you guys what's what's happening here is that you want to go into the directory of the of openclaw and then there's files here right so say you have soul you have agents you have identity >> a lot of people are very tempted when they start up to really fill their soul I think that was your problem right so you you you you started um we'll open that with notepad and it has some good default settings here it's like um you know about uh giving vibe, giving stuff and then you start telling you started filling the soul up with tasks to do and then >> um it started getting stupider because it was remembering everything. Yeah. >> Right. So you started to realize the limitation here. So I think even now I think I will have a even more lightweight soul and I think your soul that you set up there was very very good. Let me just show you guys Jeff here. But Jeff's soul right now is that's it. That's all his soul. >> That's it. >> That's that's it's got six lines. If he opened up with that's it, that's when you know it's short. >> It's short, right? And when he opens up, you're absolutely right. You know you're wrong. >> So after working with AI for such a long time, we realize, okay, having a very condensed mission for your open claw makes a lot of sense and instill that into the soul. >> Yeah. >> Right. So instead of saying, oh, here's a bunch of things. I don't know what you're doing. Okay. Like me for me, I'm like, just make a good goddamn presentation. Right. like just configure for that, right? And I think that was um I think that was the line that I actually stuck out to me is that it's not about the skills you put with your bot, but rather the intent, very clear intent for your bot will make very very much better results because it knows exactly what you want. Yeah. >> And then it can optimize itself for it. So yet again, I don't think you have to go so hardcore. This is me showing you guys like um editing these files. But um the soul is one of the most important files that you want to got access to and don't fill that up, >> right? Um that's >> what about the other files? Do have you ever would you touch them again if you were to start over or no need? >> I would actually say not like I think like one of my I experimented with this. I said one of my bots had a quirky personality like Jeff Goldloom. And it was like >> it was fun working with that sort of personality for a while but I realized you know I don't want to talk to Jeff Go every time I want to do programming right like it's like >> you know I just right I didn't need it to have that sort of personality. I thought I felt it was just a clean >> um direct personality was the best. And I yet again just like yeah I don't need this like yet again I'll just delete all the oh like I'll tell him delete all these lines like you you are you are a super efficient um or orchestrator for my tasks. uh jot, you know, um be efficient. Um be efficient. Tell tell me exactly what went well and what didn't uh go well. I think this is quite important as well cuz like a lot of times the bots try to hide us dishonestly like oh what you know I I did this don't worry about it you know like and and u there was a case where I told him to check our uh YouTube videos and it couldn't access the views but I just made it up >> yeah the numbers >> I just made up the numbers and I was like you know what like that's if I in the identity I would say you know make it very explicit if it didn't go well tell me what's >> what's up what's up all right I think that would give you much better results >> uh relative to uh what you have at the start. I think this video is already running very long. So I think those are two kind of key points I will have is one is very condensed soul and that works very well regardless of what model you're using. Miniax, Opus, it doesn't really matter. >> Soul and your identity are one of your most important um considerations you want to really make here. Uh guys, uh we're also very new channel. So, we've been we're only making YouTube videos on this channel for the last month, but you guys have given us really really good feedback. Uh, I want to say thank you guys uh for >> we endlessly produce videos. All right, so this is like our key. We grow together as a community. Sometimes I don't know what like level we want to put our videos at, but uh leave some feedback. We actually read all the community feedback ourselves and we get our boss to read it. So, it's like a double double check there. Um, but anyways guys, uh, leave some comments on what you want. And if this is the level, like yet again, we we kind of do these videos just kind of guessing what our community wants and what you guys want. But if there's something specific you guys want us to talk about, like say the Discord setup, um, you guys were requesting that feature or Telegram or WhatsApp, whatever you guys find useful, make sure that's important. I really don't think like setting up where you chat with your body is important, but rather how you set it up will lead you to amazing results. >> So, let's finish with that video there. Thank you guys so much for watching and tuning in. I'll see you guys in the next one.