openchat-openclaw

An OpenClaw plugin that adds OpenChat as a channel. Users interact with the AI agent by sending a /prompt command to a bot in OpenChat.

Prerequisites

• OpenClaw gateway running and accessible from the internet (OpenChat needs to reach your /bot_definition and /execute_command endpoints)
• openssl on your PATH (for key generation)
• Node 22+

Installation

openclaw plugins install @open-ic/openchat_openclaw

Setup

1. Generate a bot identity

npx --package @open-ic/openchat_openclaw generate-key

This generates a secp256k1 private key, writes it to ~/.openclaw/openchat-bot.pem (mode 600), and prints the corresponding Internet Computer principal. Save the principal — you'll need it when registering the bot on OpenChat.

2. Supply required environment variables

The plugin requires two env vars that must be set before starting the gateway. Add them to ~/.openclaw/.env (or export them in your shell):

# OpenChat's ES256 public key — used to verify JWTs on incoming bot commands.
# Obtain from: https://oc.app/api
OC_PUBLIC_KEY="-----BEGIN PUBLIC KEY-----\n...\n-----END PUBLIC KEY-----"

# User index canister ID — provided by OpenChat for your deployment.
OC_USER_INDEX_CANISTER="<canister-id>"

| Variable | Required | Default | Description | | --------------------------- | --------- | ----------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------- | | OC_PUBLIC_KEY | Yes | — | OpenChat's ES256 public key for JWT verification | | OC_USER_INDEX_CANISTER | Yes | — | OpenChat user index canister ID | | OC_PRIVATE_KEY | See below | — | Bot private key PEM (alternative to config) | | OC_IC_HOST | No | https://icp-api.io | Internet Computer host (override for local replicas) | | OC_STORAGE_INDEX_CANISTER | No | nbpzs-kqaaa-aaaar-qaaua-cai | Storage index canister ID |

3. Configure the private key

The bot private key (from step 1) can be supplied in three ways, in priority order:

Option A — Key file (recommended):

The generate-key script writes the PEM to ~/.openclaw/openchat-bot.pem and prints the exact command to run:

openclaw config set channels.openchat.privateKeyFile ~/.openclaw/openchat-bot.pem

Option B — Env var:

# In ~/.openclaw/.env or your shell:
OC_PRIVATE_KEY="-----BEGIN EC PRIVATE KEY-----\n...\n-----END EC PRIVATE KEY-----"

Option C — Inline config (not recommended for production):

openclaw config set channels.openchat.privateKey "-----BEGIN EC PRIVATE KEY-----\n..."

4. Start the gateway

openclaw gateway run

5. Register the bot on OpenChat

Once the gateway is running and reachable from the browser, go to oc.app, run the /register_bot command from any chat. To register the bot you can give it the name and avatar of your choice and you will also need the following two details.

• Gateway endpoint origin: https://<your-gateway-host>:<gateway-port>
• Principal: the value printed in step 1

OpenChat will call GET /bot_definition to verify your endpoint is reachable before completing registration, and POST /execute_command each time a user sends /prompt.

6. Install the bot as a direct chat.

Search for the bot you registered as if searching for a user. Install the bot as a direct chat (which involves accepting the required permissions). Start talking to the bot! Congratulations, you are now talking to OpenClaw directly from OpenChat.

Current limitations

At the moment this plugin uses a /prompt command and can only interact with OpenChat using the command's jwt. This means that we can only current do request -> response interactions and not autonomous interactions e.g. Heartbeat. I will be giving some thought to how that autonomous interaction scenario can be best supported.