I looked at OpenClaw's repo and was overwhelmed by the complexity. I just wanted a simple AI assistant I could understand end-to-end and run with one command. No framework, no build step for the frontend, no Docker, no always-on gateway.
What it does:
- Chat with Claude or OpenAI through a web UI
- Task automation - create, schedule, and run tasks through chat using natural language. AI tasks get full MCP access
- Extend with any MCP server - no marketplace, no registry. Just explicit config entries in a JSON file, so you know exactly what's running
- Memory across conversations (persistent knowledge graph via MCP)
- File system access (read/write local files via MCP)
Your data connects directly to the provider API using your own keys - both Anthropic and OpenAI confirm API data is not used for training by default. All local data (conversations, config, tasks, uploads) stays on your machine.
Demo videos in the README.