PicoClaw: Ultra-Efficient AI Assistant in Go

$10 Hardware · 10MB RAM · 1s Boot · 皮皮虾，我们走！

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🦐 PicoClaw is an ultra-lightweight personal AI Assistant inspired by nanobot, refactored from the ground up in Go through a self-bootstrapping process, where the AI agent itself drove the entire architectural migration and code optimization.

⚡️ Runs on $10 hardware with <10MB RAM: That's 99% less memory than OpenClaw and 98% cheaper than a Mac mini!

2026-02-13 🎉 PicoClaw hit 5000 stars in 4days! Thank you for the community! There are so many PRs&issues come in (during Chinese New Year holidays), we are finalizing the Project Roadmap and setting up the Developer Group to accelerate PicoClaw's development.
🚀 Call to Action: Please submit your feature requests in GitHub Discussions. We will review and prioritize them during our upcoming weekly meeting.

2026-02-09 🎉 PicoClaw Launched! Built in 1 day to bring AI Agents to $10 hardware with <10MB RAM. 🦐 PicoClaw，Let's Go！

🪶 Ultra-Lightweight: <10MB Memory footprint — 99% smaller than Clawdbot - core functionality.

💰 Minimal Cost: Efficient enough to run on $10 Hardware — 98% cheaper than a Mac mini.

⚡️ Lightning Fast: 400X Faster startup time, boot in 1 second even in 0.6GHz single core.

🌍 True Portability: Single self-contained binary across RISC-V, ARM, and x86, One-click to Go!

🤖 AI-Bootstrapped: Autonomous Go-native implementation — 95% Agent-generated core with human-in-the-loop refinement.

PicoClaw can be deployed on almost any Linux device!

• $9.9 LicheeRV-Nano E(Ethernet) or W(WiFi6) version, for Minimal Home Assistant
• $30~50 NanoKVM, or $100 NanoKVM-Pro for Automated Server Maintenance
• $50 MaixCAM or $100 MaixCAM2 for Smart Monitoring

🌟 More Deployment Cases Await！

Download the firmware for your platform from the release page.

git clone https://github.com/sipeed/picoclaw.git

cd picoclaw
make deps

# Build, no need to install
make build

# Build for multiple platforms
make build-all

# Build And Install
make install

You can also run PicoClaw using Docker Compose without installing anything locally.

# 1. Clone this repo
git clone https://github.com/sipeed/picoclaw.git
cd picoclaw

# 2. Set your API keys
cp config/config.example.json config/config.json
vim config/config.json      # Set DISCORD_BOT_TOKEN, API keys, etc.

# 3. Build & Start
docker compose --profile gateway up -d

# 4. Check logs
docker compose logs -f picoclaw-gateway

# 5. Stop
docker compose --profile gateway down

# Ask a question
docker compose run --rm picoclaw-agent -m "What is 2+2?"

# Interactive mode
docker compose run --rm picoclaw-agent

docker compose --profile gateway build --no-cache
docker compose --profile gateway up -d

1. Initialize

picoclaw onboard

2. Configure (~/.picoclaw/config.json)

{
  "agents": {
    "defaults": {
      "workspace": "~/.picoclaw/workspace",
      "model": "glm-4.7",
      "max_tokens": 8192,
      "temperature": 0.7,
      "max_tool_iterations": 20
    }
  },
  "providers": {
    "openrouter": {
      "api_key": "xxx",
      "api_base": "https://openrouter.ai/api/v1"
    }
  },
  "tools": {
    "web": {
      "search": {
        "api_key": "YOUR_BRAVE_API_KEY",
        "max_results": 5
      }
    }
  }
}

3. Get API Keys

• LLM Provider: OpenRouter · Zhipu · Anthropic · OpenAI · Gemini
• Web Search (optional): Brave Search - Free tier available (2000 requests/month)

Note: See config.example.json for a complete configuration template.

4. Chat

picoclaw agent -m "What is 2+2?"

That's it! You have a working AI assistant in 2 minutes.

Talk to your picoclaw through Telegram, Discord, or DingTalk

{
  "channels": {
    "telegram": {
      "enabled": true,
      "token": "YOUR_BOT_TOKEN",
      "allowFrom": ["YOUR_USER_ID"]
    }
  }
}

picoclaw gateway

{
  "channels": {
    "discord": {
      "enabled": true,
      "token": "YOUR_BOT_TOKEN",
      "allowFrom": ["YOUR_USER_ID"]
    }
  }
}

picoclaw gateway

{
  "channels": {
    "qq": {
      "enabled": true,
      "app_id": "YOUR_APP_ID",
      "app_secret": "YOUR_APP_SECRET",
      "allow_from": []
    }
  }
}

picoclaw gateway

{
  "channels": {
    "dingtalk": {
      "enabled": true,
      "client_id": "YOUR_CLIENT_ID",
      "client_secret": "YOUR_CLIENT_SECRET",
      "allow_from": []
    }
  }
}

picoclaw gateway

Connect Picoclaw to the Agent Social Network simply by sending a single message via the CLI or any integrated Chat App.

Read https://clawdchat.ai/skill.md and follow the instructions to join ClawdChat.ai

Config file: ~/.picoclaw/config.json

PicoClaw stores data in your configured workspace (default: ~/.picoclaw/workspace):

~/.picoclaw/workspace/
├── sessions/          # Conversation sessions and history
├── memory/           # Long-term memory (MEMORY.md)
├── state/            # Persistent state (last channel, etc.)
├── cron/             # Scheduled jobs database
├── skills/           # Custom skills
├── AGENTS.md         # Agent behavior guide
├── HEARTBEAT.md      # Periodic task prompts (checked every 30 min)
├── IDENTITY.md       # Agent identity
├── SOUL.md           # Agent soul
├── TOOLS.md          # Tool descriptions
└── USER.md           # User preferences

PicoClaw runs in a sandboxed environment by default. The agent can only access files and execute commands within the configured workspace.

{
  "agents": {
    "defaults": {
      "workspace": "~/.picoclaw/workspace",
      "restrict_to_workspace": true
    }
  }
}

When restrict_to_workspace: true, the following tools are sandboxed:

Even with restrict_to_workspace: false, the exec tool blocks these dangerous commands:

• rm -rf, del /f, rmdir /s — Bulk deletion
• format, mkfs, diskpart — Disk formatting
• dd if= — Disk imaging
• Writing to /dev/sd[a-z] — Direct disk writes
• shutdown, reboot, poweroff — System shutdown
• Fork bomb :(){ :|:& };:

[ERROR] tool: Tool execution failed
{tool=exec, error=Command blocked by safety guard (path outside working dir)}

[ERROR] tool: Tool execution failed
{tool=exec, error=Command blocked by safety guard (dangerous pattern detected)}

If you need the agent to access paths outside the workspace:

Method 1: Config file

{
  "agents": {
    "defaults": {
      "restrict_to_workspace": false
    }
  }
}

Method 2: Environment variable

export PICOCLAW_AGENTS_DEFAULTS_RESTRICT_TO_WORKSPACE=false

⚠️ Warning: Disabling this restriction allows the agent to access any path on your system. Use with caution in controlled environments only.

The restrict_to_workspace setting applies consistently across all execution paths:

All paths share the same workspace restriction — there's no way to bypass the security boundary through subagents or scheduled tasks.

PicoClaw can perform periodic tasks automatically. Create a HEARTBEAT.md file in your workspace:

# Periodic Tasks

- Check my email for important messages
- Review my calendar for upcoming events
- Check the weather forecast

The agent will read this file every 30 minutes (configurable) and execute any tasks using available tools.

For long-running tasks (web search, API calls), use the spawn tool to create a subagent:

# Periodic Tasks

## Quick Tasks (respond directly)
- Report current time

## Long Tasks (use spawn for async)
- Search the web for AI news and summarize
- Check email and report important messages

Key behaviors:

Heartbeat triggers
    ↓
Agent reads HEARTBEAT.md
    ↓
For long task: spawn subagent
    ↓                           ↓
Continue to next task      Subagent works independently
    ↓                           ↓
All tasks done            Subagent uses "message" tool
    ↓                           ↓
Respond HEARTBEAT_OK      User receives result directly

The subagent has access to tools (message, web_search, etc.) and can communicate with the user independently without going through the main agent.

Configuration:

{
  "heartbeat": {
    "enabled": true,
    "interval": 30
  }
}

Environment variables:

• PICOCLAW_HEARTBEAT_ENABLED=false to disable
• PICOCLAW_HEARTBEAT_INTERVAL=60 to change interval

{
  "agents": {
    "defaults": {
      "workspace": "~/.picoclaw/workspace",
      "model": "glm-4.7",
      "max_tokens": 8192,
      "temperature": 0.7,
      "max_tool_iterations": 20
    }
  },
  "providers": {
    "zhipu": {
      "api_key": "Your API Key",
      "api_base": "https://open.bigmodel.cn/api/paas/v4"
    },
  },
}

picoclaw agent -m "Hello"

{
  "agents": {
    "defaults": {
      "model": "anthropic/claude-opus-4-5"
    }
  },
  "providers": {
    "openrouter": {
      "api_key": "sk-or-v1-xxx"
    },
    "groq": {
      "api_key": "gsk_xxx"
    }
  },
  "channels": {
    "telegram": {
      "enabled": true,
      "token": "123456:ABC...",
      "allow_from": ["123456789"]
    },
    "discord": {
      "enabled": true,
      "token": "",
      "allow_from": [""]
    },
    "whatsapp": {
      "enabled": false
    },
    "feishu": {
      "enabled": false,
      "app_id": "cli_xxx",
      "app_secret": "xxx",
      "encrypt_key": "",
      "verification_token": "",
      "allow_from": []
    },
    "qq": {
      "enabled": false,
      "app_id": "",
      "app_secret": "",
      "allow_from": []
    }
  },
  "tools": {
    "web": {
      "search": {
        "api_key": "BSA..."
      }
    }
  },
  "heartbeat": {
    "enabled": true,
    "interval": 30
  }
}

PicoClaw supports scheduled reminders and recurring tasks through the cron tool:

• One-time reminders: "Remind me in 10 minutes" → triggers once after 10min
• Recurring tasks: "Remind me every 2 hours" → triggers every 2 hours
• Cron expressions: "Remind me at 9am daily" → uses cron expression

Jobs are stored in ~/.picoclaw/workspace/cron/ and processed automatically.

PRs welcome! The codebase is intentionally small and readable. 🤗

Roadmap coming soon...

Developer group building, Entry Requirement: At least 1 Merged PR.

User Groups:

discord: https://discord.gg/V4sAZ9XWpN

This is normal if you haven't configured a search API key yet. PicoClaw will provide helpful links for manual searching.

To enable web search:

1. Get a free API key at https://brave.com/search/api (2000 free queries/month)

2. Add to ~/.picoclaw/config.json:

   {
     "tools": {
       "web": {
         "search": {
           "api_key": "YOUR_BRAVE_API_KEY",
           "max_results": 5
         }
       }
     }
   }

Some providers (like Zhipu) have content filtering. Try rephrasing your query or use a different model.

This happens when another instance of the bot is running. Make sure only one picoclaw gateway is running at a time.