OpenClaw: Autonomous AI Agent Deployment
About This Course
Most AI agent tools cost money, lock you into a vendor, and limit what your agent can do. OpenClaw changes that equation. It is a free, open source autonomous AI agent that you deploy on your own server, connect to the foundation model of your choice (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, or a local model), and operate through Telegram. You give it an instruction; it plans, uses tools, and completes multi-step tasks, searching the web, reading documents, calling APIs, executing code, and chaining these into automated workflows.
This course teaches you to deploy, configure, and build with OpenClaw from scratch. You will set up the environment, connect your foundation model backend, integrate Telegram, and engineer the prompts and instruction files that shape your agent's behaviour. OpenClaw's four instruction files and memory system are persistent prompts, and writing them well is applied prompt engineering: structuring prompts, scoping agent behaviour through instructions, and testing how wording influences model outputs. You will install pre-built skills from the Skills Hub, build your own reusable workflow skills with decision logic and error handling, and deploy to production with the access control, logging, and update disciplines that keep a self-hosted agent running reliably.
This is not a repeat of general agentic AI training; it goes deep on one tool. It also treats agent deployment as business innovation: you will identify tasks and workflows in your own role where automation creates improvement, refine the idea, and pilot it through prototyping. The capstone has you build, deploy, and demonstrate your own OpenClaw agent for a real business use case, an innovation initiative that enhances efficiency and productivity in your role.
What You'll Learn
- Explain how OpenClaw functions as an autonomous AI agent built on foundation models and how it differs from commercial agentic platforms
- Set up and deploy OpenClaw, first locally for learning and then to a production server environment via one-click deployment
- Connect and configure multiple foundation model backends, including OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and local models
- Integrate Telegram as the agent user interface using the Telegram Bot API
- Engineer prompts and instruction files that govern agent behaviour, structuring and scoping OpenClaw's four instruction files and memory system and testing how prompt wording influences model outputs
- Configure built-in tools for web search, web browsing, file operations, and code execution
- Use the Skills Hub to discover and install pre-built skills, and build custom tool functions or connect external APIs when pre-built skills are unavailable
- Build reusable workflow skills using the OpenClaw skills framework, incorporating decision logic, error handling, and human-in-the-loop checkpoints
- Deploy OpenClaw securely in a production environment with monitoring and update management in place
- Identify opportunities for innovation and improvement in their own tasks and workflows, applying OpenClaw to business automation use cases across research, content, operations, and communication that enhance efficiency and productivity
- Complete an end-to-end capstone build by prototyping and deploying their own OpenClaw agent to Telegram for a real business use case
Entry Requirements
● Minimum age: 21
● Years of working experience: 2
● Working familiarity with command-line interfaces, basic server administration, and API usage; prior exposure to LLMs (such as ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini) required
● Working understanding of cloud servers, APIs, and messaging platforms
● Personal laptop required for hands-on exercises; learners will create accounts on Telegram, an LLM provider (OpenAI, Anthropic, or Google), and Tencent Lighthouse
● Possess basic ICT knowledge including web browsing, opening of folders and documents, account creation on web-based applications, software interface navigation, and use of a terminal
● Proficient in spoken and written English at working level
● Minimum Diploma qualification or equivalent
● Targeted at PMEs (Professionals, Managers, and Executives) including software engineers, IT managers and system administrators, technical project managers, data engineers, and technical entrepreneurs