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Show HN: Klaus – OpenClaw on a VM, batteries included

klausai.com

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Re: Show HN: Klaus – OpenClaw on a VM, batteries included

#91

Post by stavros »

raizer88 wrote: post #90
stavros wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's web browsing? Yes on the rest.

Web browsing as give the bot access to the web with an headless chrome install.

Oh, no, you'd need a plugin for that. Out of the box it has curl and web searches.

Re: Show HN: Klaus – OpenClaw on a VM, batteries included

#92

Post by baq »

wiether wrote: post #48
haolez wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not at all. AWS IAM policy is a complex maze, but incredibly powerful. It solves this exact problem very well.

Do you honestly believe that they made the effort of setting the appropriate roles and policies, though?

you tell your clanker to do it obviously

Re: Show HN: Klaus – OpenClaw on a VM, batteries included

#93

Post by pixeyo »

The actual cost depends almost entirely on context window size and task frequency, not the hosting tier.

  Light usage (a few conversations a day, no cron jobs) typically lands $5-20/month in API tokens. The trap is scheduled tasks or       
  heartbeat loops running against Opus — that compound fast. Switching the default model to Sonnet cuts costs ~5x for most workloads with
  no real quality difference for non-coding tasks.

  A few things that actually move the needle:
  - Run openclaw models list to see what's configured, then set a cheaper default for routine tasks
  - Set a token budget in any cron job skill config before running it overnight
  - Keep MEMORY.md trimmed — long memory files add to every request

  I put together a cost calculator at openclawcheatsheet.com that lets you model different usage patterns (message frequency, cron jobs,
  context size) and get a realistic monthly estimate. Helped me stop being surprised by my Anthropic bill.

Re: Show HN: Klaus – OpenClaw on a VM, batteries included

#94

Post by multidude »

TheDong wrote: post #7
ndnichols wrote: post #5

This sounds awesome and exactly like the easy and safe on-ramp to OpenClaw that I've been looking for! I want to believe. Two questions as a potential user who knows the gist of OpenClaw but has been afraid to try it: 1. I don't understand how the two consumption credits play into the total cost of ownership. E.g. how long will $20 of Orthogonal credits last me? I have no idea what it will actually cost to use Klaus/…

The cost of ownership for an OpenClaw, and how many credits you'll use, is really hard to estimate since it depends so wildly on what you do. I can give you an openclaw instruction that will burn over $20k worth of credits in a matter of hours. You could also not talk to your claw at all for the entire month, setup no crons / reoccurring activities / webhooks / etc, and get a bill of under $1 for token usage. My usag…

The model choice matters a lot for cost. I've been running a production NLP pipeline on OpenClaw using Claude Haiku exclusively — it's roughly 25x cheaper than Opus for inference tasks where you don't need the full reasoning power. For most "read this text, classify it" tasks Haiku is more than sufficient.

The hard part for a new user who knows about VMs isn't the VM setup — it's knowing which model to reach for. Opus for complex reasoning, Sonnet for balanced tasks, Haiku for high-volume classification or anything where you're calling the API repeatedly in a loop. Getting that wrong is where bills explode.

A sensible default for a hosted product like Klaus would be Sonnet with Haiku available for bulk operations. Opus should require an explicit opt-in with a cost warning.

Re: Show HN: Klaus – OpenClaw on a VM, batteries included

#95

Post by jdeng »

For openclaw to become helpful, you have to connect it to your personal email, access to your file etc. All of these requires user's manual setup right?. I do not get the point of "batteries included". Installing it is not the bottleneck right? The official docs has detail procedures for all deployment options.

Re: Show HN: Klaus – OpenClaw on a VM, batteries included

#96

Post by Frannky »

WA wrote: post #84
Frannky wrote: post #80

I found ZeroClaw plus Hetzner to be a good option. I've been using it for a week, and it's stable and robust. Complex abilities unlocked calling a FastAPI server with one skill for each endpoint

FastAPI server on the same Hetzner box? The endpoints are written by ZeroClaw?

I use another vps for FastAPI. I assume the vps with Zeroclaw will become compromised.

I don't use other people's skills. Just use Claude Code for adding endpoints and the relative skill.

Communication via Telegram bot, calendar via synced CalDAV server. Emails not connected; I don't need it personally.

LLM API is OpenCode Go Minimax. $10/month capped, I have never hit the limits.

Re: Show HN: Klaus – OpenClaw on a VM, batteries included

#97

Post by Lalabadie »

jdeng wrote: post #95

For openclaw to become helpful, you have to connect it to your personal email, access to your file etc. All of these requires user's manual setup right?. I do not get the point of "batteries included". Installing it is not the bottleneck right? The official docs has detail procedures for all deployment options.

Right, whether it runs in a sandbox is the least of my concerns if the point is to give that sandbox a way to spend or communicate in my name.

Re: Show HN: Klaus – OpenClaw on a VM, batteries included

#98

Post by scosman »

scosman wrote: post #22

What's the best "docker with openclaw" currently available? I have my own computers to run it on (I don't need a server). I want to play around, but containerized to avoid the security risk of MacOS app. There seem to be about 20 options, and new ones every day. Any consensus on the best few are, and their tradeoffs?

update: I did a standard openclaw install in docker and it works great.

Their docs are confusing. It read like the gateway is in docker, and you'll need a connected computer. However the gateway can run agents/web_search/etc. The tools you'd expect to work in a CLI environment. Even headless browsers.

Docs: https://docs.openclaw.ai/install/docker

Re: Show HN: Klaus – OpenClaw on a VM, batteries included

#99

Post by sam_chenard »

on the prompt injection via email problem — model choice helps but it's not the right layer to defend. you want to scan at ingestion, before the content ever hits context.

we built LobsterMail (lobstermail.ai) specifically for this. we're an email security team behind (palisade.email) and have been really obsessed with this problem for the last 6 months.

every inbound email gets scanned for 6 injection categories (boundary manipulation, role hijacking, data exfiltration attempts, obfuscated payloads, etc.) before it reaches the agent. the SDK exposes `email.isInjectionRisk` and `safeBodyForLLM()` which wraps untrusted content in boundary markers with a metadata header. the agent can make an informed decision rather than blindly consuming whatever lands in its inbox.

it's also agent-native — the agent self-provisions its own `@lobstermail.ai` address, no oauth app needed, no borrowing the user's gmail. big respect for agentmail too but give a shot to lobstermail if youre interested!

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