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OpenClaw surpasses React to become the most-starred software project on GitHub

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Re: OpenClaw surpasses React to become the most-starred software project on GitHub

#331

Post by theshrike79 »

SunshineTheCat wrote: post #61

I keep reading folks saying OpenClaw has completely changed their life while posting a picture of 58 mac minis on their desk. But every single use case I've read so far could be done with a pretty affordable SaaS product, Zapier, Automator (app on a mac that's existed for over a decade), or something simple you could make yourself. It also feels like people are automating things that don't really need to be automated…

I'm a skeptic myself and a long-time developer. But I do have to admit there's a nugget of truth in the Claws.

I installed picoclaw on a whim (or nano? can't remember).

In maybe 15 minutes I had it make a "get weather for this specific area using the met.no API" skill and "check the train tables at these two stops for this specific line" skill.

Then I could just say "I go to the office every Monday on a train that leaves at 8, notify me if the weather is bad or there are delays in the train schedules"

And it just worked.

The "make a skill" bit was optional, it could've figured out both on its own, but I've been doing this for a while and figured out it's a lot more (token) efficient to have it specifically know how to do the things I want it to do.

---

Now lets take this loop and think about the system and what it could do.

Even if I wasn't a programmer and just went with "tell me when the train line I use for my commute is late" the system itself could see that "hmm, this looks like a thing I'll be doing often" and create a script/skill/plugin to do that via an official API (or WebMCP in the future).

You can't do that with Zapier or N8N.

There are many cool ways a pure LLM-powered system like that can be optimised, and more importantly, can be taught to self-optimise. By default I think the systems use the "main" model to read the HEARTBEAT.md file, which is stupid expensive. That could be done with a local model small enough to run on a modern phone.

And if that small local model says "yep, there's something to do", then it can either give the full task to a LLM or if it's smart enough it can spread specific tasks to small or medium local models first.

tl;dr OpenClaw is what Siri should've been after that epic fail of a Apple Keynote.

Re: OpenClaw surpasses React to become the most-starred software project on GitHub

#332

Post by theshrike79 »

Volundr wrote: post #225
BeetleB wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So ... don't give it write access to your email? As I said elsewhere, complaining about this is like complaining that rm can let you delete your hard drive. It's a tool. Learn how to use it.

Ignoring that you've just cut off a whole vector of usefulness, how do I keep it from exfilling my inbox to the Internet in response to a malicious email? Or using its access to take control of my online accounts? Honest question, this kind of stuff is what keeps me from using it.

It's all tradeoffs and threat models.

You can prevent yourself from getting spam by not having an email account. But it's the nuclear option.

I'm fine with a system that can just read mail - and I already built one of those. I personally never send emails anyway so it's not an issue for me.

Re: OpenClaw surpasses React to become the most-starred software project on GitHub

#333

Post by Megranium »

Anon1096 wrote: post #136
SunshineTheCat wrote: post #61

I keep reading folks saying OpenClaw has completely changed their life while posting a picture of 58 mac minis on their desk. But every single use case I've read so far could be done with a pretty affordable SaaS product, Zapier, Automator (app on a mac that's existed for over a decade), or something simple you could make yourself. It also feels like people are automating things that don't really need to be automated…

Can't believe that I haven't seen the obvious answer, that OpenClaw is simply more fun to use. Sure, you MAY be able to do what OpenClaw does through 5 other dedicated tools, but you are going to take way longer to do so with a ton more drudge work. And above all else: it is extremely enjoyable to talk to the computer in normal language and just have stuff happen. And it's got a personality that you can tweak to your…

I guess it's exactly the opposite for me ... I always hated using "normal" language with the computer.

I often quip that I became a programmer specifically to avoid having to use spoken language. I always twitch at the thought of using any voice-based assistant.

Thinking in systems and algorithms is more enjoyable than using human language when it comes to computers IMHO ...

Re: OpenClaw surpasses React to become the most-starred software project on GitHub

#334

Post by theshrike79 »

theshackleford wrote: post #302
BeetleB wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Far simpler And far less capable. I have a whole system for managing TODOs, notes, etc, and I've not found an app that fits my needs (especially given that the system evolves over time). But I agree - if you have a flow that works great for you with just a phone, then I wouldn't recommend OpenClaw for that use case. > You've not yet described anything that literally 99% of the population can not already do with the…

Well, i'm happy for you from the respect that as someone with ADHD, getting a working notes and TODO system for me was life changing, and was something that in fact took me years, and I still tend to occasionally uproot my system, so I can understand that getting to somewhere it works for you can be of tremendous value alone. > I have a whole system for managing TODOs, notes, etc So do I and it can already accept inp…

ADHD here too

For me what works is limiting and filtering everything. I'm a programmer so I write small tools for this, CLI-ones because they have the lowest barrier of entry for me and are also scriptable - and nowadays LLM-capable.

At work I get a bunch of Github notifications from all kinds of crap, on the Github site the options are "on" and "off" pretty much.

So I built a TUI tool that uses the `gh` CLI and filters out all that to just the exact set I want to see, nothing more.

I have a tool that summarises long Youtube videos for me in a way that I can quickly see if it's worth the 40 minutes to 2 hours of watching or is it just two ideas spread over multiple minues for more ad revenue.

Pretty much every operation that needs me to pick up my phone, unlock it, find an app and in the app scroll down somewhere to get to the information will eventually get a CLI tool instead. Gonna do a weather one right now just based on @BeetleB's idea :D

And I'm pretty sure by the end of the summer I'll have some flavour of Claw running and using those tools to proactively give me the information I need.

A simple example: Calendar has an event far enough to warrant driving -> claw checks weather around that time+location(s) -> notify me if it looks like I need to dig my car from under a snowbank again. Or at the very least ping me with the current + future weather prediction around that time.

Re: OpenClaw surpasses React to become the most-starred software project on GitHub

#335

Post by theshrike79 »

hamelcubsfan wrote: post #317
simonw wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much do you automate things in your life using Zapier and Automator? I know about those tools, and I'm always in the mood for automating thing... and yet I don't use them. I'm not yet running a Claw because of the prompt injection / lethal trifecta risks, but I absolutely understand the appeal. Reducing friction to automating stuff from "figure out Automator again" to "message your bot" is a material difference.

Quick terminology question… when you deploy one of these in OpenClaw, is the official term “agent”? I’ve seen the project name, but I’ve never been quite sure what the canonical noun is for a running instance. Are they actually called “claws”, or is that just me over-literalizing the branding? Very curious

Agents usually refer to "coding agents" but they need a human in the loop.

What makes Claws Claws is that they run automatically without human intervention, BUT they're built around an Agent =)

It's like if you could tell Claude Code that "at 8am tomorrow morning check the weather at my current location and send me a Telegram message". It doesn't know how to wait until 8am, it'll just do it. Or it'll create some massive hack to do it.

A Claw is built for things like that and has a "memory" of stuff it needs to do in the future and the ability check it periodically.

Re: OpenClaw surpasses React to become the most-starred software project on GitHub

#336

Post by theshrike79 »

monkpit wrote: post #310
vmbm wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a lot of the hype is coming from content creators who are actually finding it useful for content creation. Generating ideas, organizing notes and research, writing scripts and articles, managing schedules, editing, promoting, etc... I assume a lot of these folks were already using LLM's quite a bit, but were using the Chat interfaces or had workflows that were split among a bunch of different services and too…

For 99% of my use cases, Claude Code is the clear winner. So, when I tried to use OpenClaw to test it out, it just seemed like a worse, slower, less-capable version of Claude Code. And it is. I haven’t seen the use case where OpenClaw can really shine yet, but I’m sure it’s coming. Like others are saying, I’m willing to be convinced, but so far it hasn’t happened.

Ask it to do something in the future or something with a conditional, plain CC can't do that.

Like "message me when it is about to rain"

Re: OpenClaw surpasses React to become the most-starred software project on GitHub

#337

Post by theshrike79 »

vor_ wrote: post #321
pclark wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, I'll bite and run the HN skepticism guantlet. I have an OpenClaw setup with a Claude API token and Qwen local model, running on an M4 Mac Mini with 32GB RAM. 1. At 7AM and periodically throughout the day it checks my calendars (work, parenting schedule, personal), a hyper local weather station, and some specific news topics — and sends me a summary and throughout the day updates if anything significant happens. 1…

> It disappoints me that technologists are so skeptical of this technology rather than exploring what it is and why it might be different to what exists today. It's fun! thats the takeaway: it's FUN. It's most likely fun for you because it's novel, and for a lot of skeptics, AI novelty has long worn off.

Things can be novel and useful at the same time.

The new shiny and new car smell will fade out, but some things stay after that. I'm about 90% sure Claws in some flavour will stay even after the hype slows down.

If a mobile phone company can figure out how to make this cost-efficient and be reasonably sure the assistant won't do anything that gets them in the news, their next device versions will have a similar branded system

Re: OpenClaw surpasses React to become the most-starred software project on GitHub

#338

Post by theshrike79 »

blenderob wrote: post #147

Look at the graph - https://api.star-history.com/svg?repos=facebook/react,opencl... React and Linux got their 200K stars slowly but surely over 10 years. OpenClaw got their 200K stars in like 3 months! Is this any meaningful comparison? Getting 200K stars today doesn't mean much because today stars can be bought. There's a big shady thriving business of selling stars. Stars today can be generated using swarm of thoug…

Everyone's Clawd has a Github account that most likely has liked the OpenClaw project

Would be nice to see a graph of stars by account age, how many of the stars come from accounts that are under 6 months old for example?

Re: OpenClaw surpasses React to become the most-starred software project on GitHub

#339

Post by theshrike79 »

luke5441 wrote: post #101
mccoyb wrote: post #58

GitHub has a bot problem: https://github.com/trending

Anthropic giving away Claude if you get 5000 stars doesn't help either

I'm pretty sure it's not "if 5000 stars then free Claude". It's just an initial limit before they bother a human to check if your open source project is valid.

Just like Jetbrains gives away IDEA licenses for open source projects, you need to have some metrics go up before they even consider you.

Re: OpenClaw surpasses React to become the most-starred software project on GitHub

#340

Post by theshrike79 »

silversmith wrote: post #10
sschueller wrote: post #7

What is an effective use case? I have set it up but I don't know what to do with it. Just a personal assistant (if you were to give it access to your stuff)? Mine is caged in a VLAN with only internet access.

I guess we are just boring and/or unimaginative. I don't get that many communications per day to require an abstraction level between me and the messages. The daily automations I need are more efficiently carried out by home assistant / n8n. I'm not in a position where I need automated briefs on every new company started in my area. I genuinely don't see how it could benefit me.

n8n can't handle abiguity, unless you program it to.

Like if you want bad weather alerts, you need to specifically define every situation of "bad weather" by givin exact weather / wind / rain limits.

What happens if it's cold, windy and rainy, but every value is juust 0.1 over the threshold of notifying you? It's still objectively shit weather.

Or can n8n go through your emails and check for promo codes or sales you're looking for - in ad mails that are 90% images with text?

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