The Complete Guide to OpenClaw Skills

1. What Is OpenClaw?

OpenClaw is an open-source, self-hosted AI agent framework. It runs a Gateway daemon on your machine that connects to your messaging apps — Telegram, WhatsApp, Discord, Slack, Signal, iMessage — and turns them into interfaces for an always-available AI assistant.[1]

What makes OpenClaw different from ChatGPT or other cloud AI services:

• Persistent memory — Your agent remembers conversations, decisions, and context across sessions
• Real tools — File system access, shell commands, web browsing, API calls
• Scheduling — Cron jobs and heartbeats for background automation
• Multi-channel — One agent, all your messaging platforms
• Sub-agents — Spawn background workers for parallel tasks
• Model-agnostic — Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Ollama, OpenRouter, and more

But out of the box, OpenClaw is a generalist. It can read files, run commands, and chat. To make it truly powerful — controlling your smart lights, managing your email, ordering food, generating images — you need Skills.

2. What Are Skills?

Skills are modular, self-contained capability packages that extend what your OpenClaw agent can do. Think of them like plugins, but designed for AI agents rather than traditional software.

Each skill is a folder containing:

• SKILL.md — A markdown file that tells the agent what the skill does, when to use it, and how to use it
• scripts/ — Optional helper scripts the agent can execute
• assets/ — Optional configuration files, templates, or other resources

The key insight: skills are declarative, not imperative. The SKILL.md file doesn't contain code that runs automatically — it contains knowledge that the agent reads and applies when relevant. It's like giving someone a manual rather than a script to execute blindly.

Skills can require:

• CLI tools — Binaries that need to be installed (e.g., ffmpeg, gh, himalaya)
• API keys — Environment variables for service authentication
• Platform support — Some skills are macOS-only (Apple Notes, Things 3) or require specific hardware

3. How Skills Work (Technical)

Skill Structure

Every skill lives in a folder under the skills directory. Here's the anatomy of a typical skill:

skills/
  weather/
    SKILL.md          # Agent-readable instructions
    scripts/
      get_weather.sh  # Helper scripts (optional)
    assets/
      config.json     # Templates or config (optional)

The SKILL.md file is the heart of every skill. It follows a consistent structure:

---
name: weather
description: Get current weather and forecasts (no API key required).
homepage: https://wttr.in/:help
metadata:
  openclaw:
    emoji: "🌤️"
    requires:
      bins: ["curl"]
---

# Weather

Two free services, no API keys needed.

## wttr.in (primary)

Quick one-liner:

```bash
curl -s "wttr.in/London?format=3"
# Output: London: ⛅️ +8°C
```

How Skills Load

When your agent starts a session, OpenClaw scans the skills directory and loads the frontmatter metadata from each SKILL.md. This gives the agent a manifest of available capabilities without loading the full content of every skill into the context window.

When the agent encounters a task that matches a skill's description — for example, "what's the weather in Berlin?" — it reads the full SKILL.md and follows the instructions. This lazy-loading approach keeps the context window efficient.

The flow looks like:

Metadata & Dependencies

The frontmatter metadata block tells OpenClaw what a skill needs to function:

The install block is particularly clever — it gives OpenClaw recipes to automatically install missing dependencies. Each recipe specifies the package manager, package name, and resulting binary:

install:
  - id: brew
    kind: brew
    formula: steipete/tap/camsnap
    bins: ["camsnap"]
    label: "Install camsnap (brew)"
  - id: go
    kind: go
    module: "github.com/steipete/camsnap@latest"
    bins: ["camsnap"]
    label: "Install camsnap (go)"

4. The ClawHub Marketplace

ClawHub (clawhub.ai) is the community marketplace for OpenClaw skills. Think of it as npm or the VS Code marketplace, but for AI agent capabilities.

What ClawHub offers:

• Browse & search — Find skills by category, popularity, or keyword
• One-command install — clawhub install <skill-name>
• Version management — Skills are versioned; update with clawhub update
• Community contributions — Anyone can publish skills
• Quality signals — Download counts, ratings, and verified publishers

The ClawHub CLI integrates directly with OpenClaw:

# Install the ClawHub CLI
npm install -g clawhub

# Search for skills
clawhub search weather

# Install a skill
clawhub install weather

# Update all installed skills
clawhub update

# Publish your own skill
clawhub publish ./my-skill

5. Top Skills Available Today

OpenClaw ships with 50+ bundled skills covering messaging, productivity, media, smart home, and developer tooling. Here are the highlights by category:

Messaging & Chat

Productivity

Media & Audio

Smart Home & IoT

Developer Tools

6. How to Install Skills

Method 1: ClawHub CLI (Recommended)

The easiest way to add skills is through ClawHub:

# Install a skill from ClawHub
clawhub install weather

# Install multiple skills at once
clawhub install weather spotify-player openhue

# Update all installed skills to latest versions
clawhub update

# Check what's installed
clawhub list

Method 2: Manual Installation

Skills are just folders — you can download or create them manually:

# Clone a skill from GitHub
git clone https://github.com/example/my-skill.git \
  ~/.openclaw/agents/main/skills/my-skill

# Or create a symlink
ln -s /path/to/my-skill \
  ~/.openclaw/agents/main/skills/my-skill

Setting Up Dependencies

After installing a skill, check its requirements:

1. Install required binaries — The SKILL.md metadata lists what's needed. OpenClaw can often auto-install via Homebrew, npm, Go, or pip.
2. Set API keys — Add required environment variables to your .env file or openclaw.json:

   # In ~/.openclaw/.env
   ELEVENLABS_API_KEY=sk-...
   OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-...
   GOOGLE_PLACES_API_KEY=AIza...

3. Configure channels — Some skills (Discord, Slack) require channel configuration in openclaw.json

Testing a Skill

After installation, just message your agent with a relevant request:

# Weather skill
You: "What's the weather in Tokyo?"

# Spotify skill
You: "Play some jazz on Spotify"

# Hue skill
You: "Turn the living room lights to warm white at 50%"

If the skill isn't working, check:

• Is the skill folder in the right location? (~/.openclaw/agents/main/skills/)
• Are the required binaries installed? Run the binary name directly to check.
• Are API keys set? Check with echo $API_KEY_NAME
• Restart the Gateway: openclaw gateway restart

7. Building Your Own Skills

Building a skill is straightforward — you're writing a manual for your AI agent.

Step 1: Create the Folder Structure

mkdir -p ~/.openclaw/agents/main/skills/my-skill/scripts
touch ~/.openclaw/agents/main/skills/my-skill/SKILL.md

Step 2: Write the SKILL.md

Start with the frontmatter metadata, then write clear instructions:

---
name: my-skill
description: One-line description of what this skill does.
homepage: https://example.com
metadata:
  openclaw:
    emoji: "🔧"
    requires:
      bins: ["my-tool"]
    install:
      - id: brew
        kind: brew
        formula: my-tool
        bins: ["my-tool"]
        label: "Install my-tool (brew)"
---

# My Skill

## Overview
What this skill does and when to use it.

## Setup
One-time configuration steps.

## Usage
Step-by-step instructions with examples.

## Examples
```bash
my-tool --action do-something --input "example"
```

Step 3: Add Helper Scripts (Optional)

If your skill needs complex logic, add scripts:

#!/bin/bash
# scripts/do-something.sh
# Called by the agent when it needs to perform the action

INPUT="$1"
my-tool process --input "$INPUT" --format json

Step 4: Test Locally

Restart your Gateway and test by asking your agent to use the skill. Watch the agent's reasoning to ensure it finds and follows your SKILL.md correctly.

Step 5: Publish to ClawHub

# Publish your skill
clawhub publish ./my-skill

# Update an existing published skill
clawhub publish ./my-skill --update