AI agents,
safely contained.

clawctl runs each OpenClaw gateway in its own isolated Ubuntu VM. Set up in minutes. Manage a fleet from your terminal.

$ curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/TimBeyer/clawctl/main/install.sh | bash

$ clawctl create

Requires macOS on Apple Silicon.

See it in action

The interactive wizard walks you through every setting. One command, fully configured gateway.

~ — clawctl create

Your fleet, at a glance

Every instance is its own isolated VM. See them all with one command.

~ — clawctl list

$ clawctl list

NAME STATUS PROJECT PROVIDER PORT

research-ai Running ~/openclaw-vms/research-ai anthropic 18789

code-review Running ~/openclaw-vms/code-review openai 18790

data-pipeline Stopped ~/openclaw-vms/data-pipeline anthropic 18791

clawctl create

Sandboxed by default

Every gateway runs in its own Ubuntu VM via Lima. Nothing touches your Mac. Config and data live in a git-tracked project directory on your host — delete the VM, recreate it, pick up right where you left off.

clawctl list

Fleet-ready from day one

Spin up as many gateways as your hardware allows. Each gets its own isolated VM, project directory, and config. Instance context resolution means you set the name once and stop repeating yourself.

--config config.json

Config-as-code

Headless mode provisions from JSON configs — CI/CD, team onboarding, reproducible rebuilds. Reference 1Password secrets with op:// URIs. Zero plaintext credentials in your repo.

Headless provisioning

One JSON file. Full gateway. No prompts. VM resources, networking, provider, agent persona, channels — everything in one config you can check into git.

// Share configs across your team for identical environments

// Run in CI/CD for fully automated provisioning

// Same config rebuilds an identical gateway every time

$ clawctl create --config hal.json

hal.json

          {
  "name": "hal",
  "project": "~/openclaw-vms/hal",
  "resources": { "cpus": 4, "memory": "8GiB" },
  "provider": {
    "type": "anthropic",
    "model": "anthropic/claude-opus-4-6"
  },
  "bootstrap": {
    "agent": {
      "name": "Hal",
      "context": "Calm, precise, just a little too helpful."
    }
  }
}

Not just an installer

Day-to-day management from your host. No need to shell in.

Ready to go?

Your gateway will be running in its own isolated VM in minutes.