Captain Claw

An open-source AI agent that runs locally, supports multiple LLM providers, and gets work done — coding, research, automation, document processing, orchestration — through persistent sessions with built-in safety guards.

Feature Snapshot

Capability	What it does
Multi-model routing	Mix GPT, Claude, Gemini, and Ollama in one CLI
Per-session model selection	Keep one session on Claude, another on GPT, another on Ollama
Persistent multi-session workflows	Resume any session exactly where you left off
Built-in safety guards	Input, output, and script/tool checks before anything runs
27 built-in tools	Shell, files, web fetch/get/search, docs, email, TTS, image gen/OCR/vision, Google Workspace CLI (gws — Drive, Docs, Calendar, Gmail), todo, contacts, scripts, APIs, datastore, deep memory, playbooks, personality, BotPort, Termux (Android)
Personality system	Dual-profile system — global agent identity plus per-user profiles for tailored responses
Skills system	OpenClaw-compatible skills with auto-discovery and GitHub install
Orchestrator / DAG mode	Decompose complex tasks into parallel multi-session execution
Memory / RAG	Hybrid vector + text retrieval across workspace and sessions
Web UI	Chat, monitor pane, instruction editor, command palette, persona selector, datastore browser, deep memory dashboard
BotPort (agent-to-agent)	Route tasks to specialist agents across a network of Captain Claw instances
Remote integrations	Telegram (per-user sessions), Slack, Discord with secure pairing
Cross-session to-do memory	Persistent task list shared across sessions with auto-capture
Cross-session script memory	Persistent script/file tracking with auto-capture from write tool
Cross-session API memory	Persistent API endpoint tracking with auto-capture from web_fetch
Cross-session playbook memory	Rate sessions to auto-distill reusable orchestration patterns (do/don't pseudo-code) with auto-injection
Datastore	SQLite-backed relational tables managed by the agent, with protection rules, import/export, web dashboard, and table export via UI
Chunked processing pipeline	Run small-context models (20k–32k tokens) on large content via automatic content chunking
Cron scheduling	Interval, daily, and weekly tasks inside the runtime
OpenAI-compatible API	POST /v1/chat/completions proxy with agent pool

Quick Start

1. Install

Requires Python 3.11 or higher.

python -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate
pip install captain-claw

Optional extras:

pip install captain-claw[tts]      # Local text-to-speech (pocket-tts, requires PyTorch)
pip install captain-claw[vector]   # Vector memory / RAG (numpy, scikit-learn)
pip install captain-claw[vision]   # Image resize before LLM calls (Pillow; or use ImageMagick)

2. Set an API key

export OPENAI_API_KEY="your-openai-key"
export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY="your-anthropic-key"
export GOOGLE_API_KEY="your-google-key"
export GEMINI_API_KEY="your-gemini-key"

Use only the keys you need. For Ollama, no key is required — just set provider: ollama in config.yaml.

3. Launch

captain-claw-web          # Web UI (default: http://127.0.0.1:23080)
captain-claw              # Interactive terminal
captain-claw --tui        # Terminal UI
captain-claw --port 8080  # Override web server port
botport                   # BotPort agent-to-agent routing hub

First run starts interactive onboarding automatically — it pre-configures 12 models across OpenAI, Anthropic, and Gemini (including image generation, OCR, and vision). The web UI redirects to /onboarding on first launch too. To re-run it later: captain-claw --onboarding.

If the configured port is busy, Captain Claw automatically tries the next available port (up to 10 attempts).

4. Try it

> Investigate failing integration tests and propose a fix.

/models                          # see available models
/session model claude-sonnet     # switch this session to Claude

/new release-notes               # create a second session
/session model chatgpt-fast      # use GPT for this one

> Draft release notes from the previous session updates.

/session run #1 summarize current blockers   # run a prompt in session #1

Each session keeps its own model, context, and history.

5. Open the Web UI

Run captain-claw-web to start the web UI at http://127.0.0.1:23080. Use Ctrl+K for the command palette, Ctrl+B for the sidebar, and edit instruction files live in the Instructions tab.

For the terminal, use captain-claw (interactive) or captain-claw --tui (TUI mode).

Docker

Pull and run (quickest)

docker pull kstevica/captain-claw:latest
docker pull kstevica/captain-claw-botport:latest

You need a config.yaml and .env in the current directory. Both files must exist before running — if they don't, Docker creates empty directories instead and the container fails to start.

Minimal .env — add only the keys you need:

# At least one model API key is required
OPENAI_API_KEY="sk-..."
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY="sk-ant-..."
GOOGLE_API_KEY="AI..."
GEMINI_API_KEY="AI..."

# Ollama (if using local models from within Docker)
OLLAMA_BASE_URL="http://host.docker.internal:11434"

Minimal config.yaml — a working starting point:

model:
  provider: gemini              # openai, anthropic, gemini, ollama
  model: gemini-2.5-flash       # model name for the chosen provider
  temperature: 0.7
  allowed:
    - id: claude-sonnet
      provider: anthropic
      model: claude-sonnet-4-20250514
    - id: gpt-4o
      provider: openai
      model: gpt-4o

web:
  enabled: true
  port: 23080

The first launch starts onboarding automatically and pre-configures models. For the full configuration reference, see USAGE.md.

# Captain Claw web UI
docker run -d -p 23080:23080 \
  -v $(pwd)/config.yaml:/app/config.yaml:ro \
  -v $(pwd)/.env:/app/.env:ro \
  -v $(pwd)/docker-data/home-config:/root/.captain-claw \
  -v $(pwd)/docker-data/workspace:/data/workspace \
  -v $(pwd)/docker-data/sessions:/data/sessions \
  -v $(pwd)/docker-data/skills:/data/skills \
  kstevica/captain-claw:latest

# BotPort (optional, for multi-agent routing)
docker run -d -p 33080:33080 \
  -v $(pwd)/botport/config.yaml:/app/config.yaml:ro \
  -v $(pwd)/.env:/app/.env:ro \
  kstevica/captain-claw-botport:latest

• Web UI: http://localhost:23080
• BotPort dashboard: http://localhost:33080

Build from source with Docker Compose

If you cloned the repo, use the included docker-compose.yml:

docker compose up -d                # both services
docker compose up -d captain-claw   # web UI only
docker compose up -d botport        # BotPort only

Persistent data

All persistent data is stored under ./docker-data/ on the host:

Host path	Container path	Contents
./docker-data/home-config/	/root/.captain-claw/	Settings saved from the web UI
./docker-data/workspace/	/data/workspace/	Workspace files
./docker-data/sessions/	/data/sessions/	Session database
./docker-data/skills/	/data/skills/	Installed skills

Configuration (config.yaml) and secrets (.env) are mounted read-only from the current directory.

Build and manage

docker compose up -d --build    # rebuild after code changes
docker compose logs -f          # follow logs
docker compose down             # stop all services

See USAGE.md for the full Docker reference.

How It Works

Sessions

Sessions are first-class. Create named sessions for separate projects, switch instantly, and persist everything.

/new incident-hotfix
/session model claude-sonnet
/session protect on                            # prevent accidental /clear
/session procreate #1 #2 "merged context"      # merge two sessions
/session run #2 summarize current blockers     # run prompt in another session
/session export all                            # export chat + monitor history

Tools

Captain Claw ships with 27 built-in tools. The agent picks the right tool for each task automatically.

Tool	What it does
shell	Execute terminal commands
read / write / glob	File operations and pattern matching
web_fetch	Fetch and extract readable text from web pages (always text mode)
web_get	Fetch raw HTML source for scraping and DOM inspection
web_search	Search the web via Brave Search API
pdf_extract	Extract PDF content to markdown
docx_extract	Extract Word documents to markdown
xlsx_extract	Extract Excel sheets to markdown tables
pptx_extract	Extract PowerPoint slides to markdown
image_gen	Generate images from text prompts (DALL-E 3, gpt-image-1)
image_ocr	Extract text from images via vision-capable LLMs
image_vision	Analyze and describe images via vision-capable LLMs
pocket_tts	Generate speech audio (MP3) locally
send_mail	Send email via SMTP, Mailgun, or SendGrid
gws	Google Workspace CLI — Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Gmail (read), and Calendar via the gws binary
todo	Persistent cross-session to-do list with auto-capture
contacts	Persistent cross-session address book with auto-capture
scripts	Persistent cross-session script/file memory with auto-capture
apis	Persistent cross-session API memory with auto-capture
datastore	Manage relational data tables with CRUD, import/export, raw SQL, and protection rules
personality	Read or update the agent personality and per-user profiles
typesense	Index, search, and manage documents in deep memory (Typesense)
playbooks	Persistent cross-session orchestration pattern memory with auto-distillation
botport	Consult specialist agents through the BotPort agent-to-agent network
termux	Interact with Android device via Termux API (camera, battery, GPS, torch)

See USAGE.md for full parameters and configuration.

Guards

Three built-in guard types protect against risky operations:

guards:
  input:
    enabled: true
    level: "ask_for_approval"     # or "stop_suspicious"
  output:
    enabled: true
    level: "stop_suspicious"
  script_tool:
    enabled: true
    level: "ask_for_approval"

Guards run before LLM requests (input), after model responses (output), and before any command or tool execution (script_tool). See USAGE.md for details.

Configuration at a Glance

Captain Claw is YAML-driven with environment variable overrides.

model:
  provider: "openai"
  model: "gpt-4o-mini"
  allowed:
    - id: "claude-sonnet"
      provider: "anthropic"
      model: "claude-sonnet-4-20250514"

tools:
  enabled: ["shell", "read", "write", "glob", "web_fetch", "web_search",
            "pdf_extract", "docx_extract", "xlsx_extract", "pptx_extract",
            "image_gen", "image_ocr", "image_vision",
            "pocket_tts", "send_mail", "gws", "todo", "contacts", "scripts",
            "apis", "datastore", "playbooks", "personality", "botport", "termux"]

web:
  enabled: true
  port: 23080

Load precedence: ./config.yaml > ~/.captain-claw/config.yaml > environment variables > .env file > defaults.

For the full configuration reference (23 sections, every field), see USAGE.md.

Advanced Features

Each of these is documented in detail in USAGE.md.

• Orchestrator / DAG mode — /orchestrate decomposes a complex request into a task DAG and runs tasks in parallel across separate sessions with real-time progress monitoring. Also available headless via captain-claw-orchestrate.

• Skills system — OpenClaw-compatible SKILL.md files. Auto-discovered from workspace, managed, and plugin directories. Install from GitHub with /skill install <url>.

• Memory / RAG — Hybrid vector + text retrieval. Indexes workspace files and session messages. Configurable embedding providers (OpenAI, Ollama, local hash fallback).

• Cross-session to-do memory — Persistent task list shared across sessions. Auto-capture from natural language, context injection to nudge the agent, and full /todo command support across CLI, Web UI, Telegram, Slack, and Discord.

• Cross-session address book — Persistent contact memory that tracks people across sessions. Auto-captures from conversation and email, auto-computes importance from mention frequency, and injects relevant contact context on demand.

• Cross-session script memory — Persistent tracking of scripts and files the agent creates. Auto-captures from the write tool when executable extensions are detected. Stores path + metadata (no file content in DB). On-demand context injection when script names appear in conversation.

• Cross-session API memory — Persistent tracking of external APIs the agent interacts with. Auto-captures from web_fetch and web_get when API-like URLs are detected. Stores credentials, endpoints, and accumulated context. On-demand context injection when API names or URLs appear in conversation.

• Cron scheduling — Pseudo-cron within the runtime. Schedule prompts, scripts, or tools at intervals, daily, or weekly. Guards remain active for every cron execution.

• Execution queue — Five queue modes (steer, followup, collect, interrupt, queue) control how follow-up messages are handled during agent execution.

• BotPort (agent-to-agent) — Connect multiple Captain Claw instances through the BotPort routing hub. Agents can delegate tasks to specialist instances based on expertise tags, persona matching, or LLM-powered routing. Supports bidirectional follow-ups, context negotiation, and concern lifecycle management. Included with pip install captain-claw — run botport to start a hub, then connect instances via WebSocket (e.g. wss://botport.kstevica.com/ws).

• Remote integrations — Connect Telegram, Slack, or Discord bots. Telegram users get isolated per-user sessions with concurrent agent execution. Unknown users get a pairing token; the operator approves locally with /approve user.

• OpenAI-compatible API — POST /v1/chat/completions endpoint proxied through the Captain Claw agent pool. Streaming supported.

• Google Workspace CLI (gws) — Access Google Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Gmail (read), and Calendar through the gws CLI binary. Search and download Drive files, read Google Docs/Sheets/Slides inline (Sheets exported as XLSX with all sheets, Presentations as PPTX with all slides), create Google Docs, list and search emails, view calendar agenda and create events. The scale loop automatically processes Google Drive file lists without manual file-ID handling. Supports a raw passthrough mode for any gws command. Requires separate gws CLI installation and authentication.

• Datastore — SQLite-backed relational data tables managed entirely by the agent. 19 tool actions cover schema management, CRUD operations, raw SELECT queries, CSV/XLSX import and export, and a four-level protection system (table, column, row, cell). Includes a web dashboard for browsing tables, editing rows, running SQL, uploading files, and exporting tables as CSV/XLSX/JSON.

• Deep Memory (Typesense) — Long-term searchable archive backed by Typesense. Indexes processed items from the scale loop, web fetches, and manual input. Hybrid keyword + vector search. Separate from the SQLite-backed semantic memory. Includes a web dashboard for browsing, searching, and managing indexed documents.

• Playbooks — Persistent cross-session orchestration pattern memory. Rate sessions as good/bad to auto-distill reusable do/don't pseudo-code patterns. Playbooks are auto-injected into planning context when similar tasks are detected, improving decision quality over time. Includes a web editor and REST API.

• Send mail — SMTP, Mailgun, or SendGrid. Supports attachments up to 25 MB.

• Termux (Android) — Run Captain Claw on Android via Termux. Take photos with front/back camera (auto-sent to Telegram), get GPS location, check battery status, and toggle the flashlight — all through the Termux API.

• Document extraction — PDF, DOCX, XLSX, PPTX converted to markdown for agent consumption.

• Chunked processing pipeline — Enables small-context models (20k–32k tokens) to process large content. A context budget guard detects when content exceeds the available window, splits it into sequential chunks, processes each with full instructions, and combines partial results via LLM synthesis or concatenation. Integrates transparently with the scale loop micro-loop.

• Context compaction — Auto-compacts long sessions at configurable thresholds. Manual compaction with /compact.

• Personality system — Dual-profile system with a global agent identity (name, background, expertise) and per-user profiles that tailor responses to each user's perspective. Editable via the personality tool, REST API, or the Settings page. Telegram users get automatic per-user profiles.

• Session export — Export chat, monitor, pipeline trace, or pipeline summary to files.

Development

pip install -e ".[dev]"
pytest
ruff check captain_claw/

Architecture

Path	Role
captain_claw/agent.py	Main orchestration logic
captain_claw/llm/	Provider abstraction (OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, Ollama)
captain_claw/tools/	Tool registry and 26 tool implementations
captain_claw/personality.py	Agent and per-user personality profiles
captain_claw/session/	SQLite-backed session persistence
captain_claw/skills.py	Skill discovery, loading, and invocation
captain_claw/session_orchestrator.py	Parallel multi-session DAG orchestrator
captain_claw/semantic_memory.py	Hybrid vector + text retrieval (RAG)
captain_claw/datastore.py	SQLite-backed relational datastore
captain_claw/deep_memory.py	Typesense-backed long-term archive
captain_claw/botport_client.py	BotPort WebSocket client
captain_claw/google_oauth_manager.py	Google OAuth token management
captain_claw/cli.py	Terminal UI
captain_claw/web/	Web server (WebSocket + REST + static)
captain_claw/orchestrator_cli.py	Headless orchestrator CLI
captain_claw/agent_chunked_processing_mixin.py	Chunked processing pipeline for small-context models
captain_claw/config.py	Configuration and env overrides
captain_claw/instructions/	Externalized prompt and instruction templates

FAQ

Is Captain Claw only for coding? No. It handles coding, ops automation, web research, document processing, email, and multi-session orchestration.

Can I use local models only? Yes. Set provider to ollama and run fully local.

Can I run different models at the same time? Yes. Model selection is per session. Different sessions can use different providers and models simultaneously.

Do I need guards enabled? No. Guards are off by default. Enable them when you want stricter safety behavior.

Is there a web interface? Yes — it's the default. Run captain-claw and open http://127.0.0.1:23080. Same agent, sessions, tools, and guardrails as the terminal. Use --tui for the terminal UI.

Where is the full reference? See USAGE.md for comprehensive documentation of every command, tool, config option, and feature.

Get Started

python -m venv venv && source venv/bin/activate
pip install captain-claw
captain-claw-web

If Captain Claw is useful to you, give the repo a star to help others find it.

Found a bug or have a feature idea? Open an issue. Contributions welcome.

License

MIT