Live data from Hacker News

NanoClaw moved from Apple Containers to Docker

twitter.com

61–70 of 146 posts

Re: NanoClaw moved from Apple Containers to Docker

#61
You don't need to use OpenClaw, NanoClaw or any of these new variants. You can literally use Codex, Claude Code, Gemini, OpenCode for the same thing. The only thing that it is missing from all of them is the communication channels because none of them come with native communication tools like OpenClaw.

But this is not such a big deal.

I made an open-source lightweight daemon in Go that fills that gap. All it does is to provide the means to connect to popular messaging systems like Slack, Discord, WhatsApp, Telegram, etc. and expose this all through the CLI.

The project is hosted here: https://github.com/pantalk/pantalk

My personal realisation recently has been that the unix way is the best way. We just need to go back creating daemons and lightweight composable CLIs and let agents do their thing. They are increasing being trained to operate the command-line and they are getting pretty good at it.

Re: NanoClaw moved from Apple Containers to Docker

#62

I'm surprised that the developer experience around sandboxing on macOS is generally so bad. Seatbelt is in limbo and apple containers are just a pain to work with as some have highlighted in this thread

Is there any developer experience on Apple products that isn’t bad?

Re: NanoClaw moved from Apple Containers to Docker

#63

Can someone explain the special sauce of the claws compared to just use claude.ai etc

Crons. A local daemon. System access as a user with the ability to listen to changes. Some idea of shared “memory” between sessions. Provider agnostic about AI. Multi-model.

Can you elaborate on “listen for changes”? AFAIK it can’t do that and needs cron jobs to check.

Re: NanoClaw moved from Apple Containers to Docker

#64
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're "always" running, so they can notify you out of the blue, without you having to initiate a conversation. It's really nice UX to get a message from my assistant saying "hey, it's time to leave for the gym, and don't forget the supermarket bag because you're picking up milk on the way back, as you've run out".

Dunno, my calendar reminds me "out of the blue", without me having to initiate a conversation, that it's time to leave for the gym, no "claw" or "ai" involved. I always have my backpack with me, so if I need milk I can pick it up on the way back. And I am pretty sure that I have to notice if I need milk myself. The tech sounds cool, but whenever I hear about actual applications, I don't see the point.

That's because you just lack of imagination. Imagine if you have a human personal assistant, what would you ask them to do? Examples:

"Find me the cheapest ticket to Las Vegas for the first week of June. Buy one at anytime that you think is reasonable. Wait until no later than two months from now before buying. Get two tickets if my brother can also go".

"Email me if anyone posts a Sega multi mega for sale. But only if it's in black color".

I have no idea if OpenClaws can already do such a task or not, I don't have one, but it opens up new possibilities. If it isn't there yet, it will be.

Re: NanoClaw moved from Apple Containers to Docker

#65
post #59
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't have a need for a personal assistant, that's fine, not everyone does. That doesn't mean nobody does. The milk thing was just an example of a tool that can intelligently combine things for you, not a literal "it's a calendar with a milk function". This is a bit like "if I want to call my friends, I have a phone a home, why would I need a mobile?" which somewhat betrays a lack of imagination.

You're just not providing any good examples of what I cant already do with current automation tools.

My wife constantly asks me about adding books to her Kindle. I use Anna’s archive for this, but the process can be very annoying. I have to go to the site, search for the content. Filter by epub and English. Then download the content. Then send it to her Kindle email.

My openclaw now searches for the relevant content upon her request, sends the URL to a Stacks docker instance, monitors the Stacks instance for when the download completes, grabs the resulting epub from a local file share, then sends it to her kindle email. She doesn’t even send me the request anymore; she sends them straight to the Discord bot.

It also corrects our calendar every night. She often just through something on the calendar like “[son’s name] speech”, but we have speech appointments in either of two locations, and I have a strong preference for calendar items in the format “[person] - activity”. If she puts the city name with the speech appointments (“[son’s name] speech [town]”), openclaw reformats the title accordingly and adds the physical address of the speech therapy office we go to in that town. This means Apple Calendar sends us notifications when it’s time to leave, instead of just 30 mins prior.

I have a few others as well, but those are real world examples. Maybe they don’t matter for your use case, but they’re good for mine.

Re: NanoClaw moved from Apple Containers to Docker

#66
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. That's why you don't put a Clown behind the steering wheel.

It is more like getting in the car with Stuntman Mike. The risk is not that the driver might make a mistake but that it actively turns against you and a container is not a security boundary against an adversary.

"Because it was a 50-50 shot on whether you'd be going left or right [...]"

Yeah, that about sums up how terrifying it is to give these agents so much access to things.

Re: NanoClaw moved from Apple Containers to Docker

#67
post #61

You don't need to use OpenClaw, NanoClaw or any of these new variants. You can literally use Codex, Claude Code, Gemini, OpenCode for the same thing. The only thing that it is missing from all of them is the communication channels because none of them come with native communication tools like OpenClaw. But this is not such a big deal. I made an open-source lightweight daemon in Go that fills that gap. All it does is…

I’ve been using happy cli, works great

Re: NanoClaw moved from Apple Containers to Docker

#68
post #6

Putting these NanoClowns inside a container will not protect you from all kinds of safety hazards.

Let’s be honest. The whole thing is just the prevent Claude from “rm -rf / “.

It’s it someone is trying to avoid the thing talking to the internet or reading your emails, it’s just that it sometimes has the strange itch to change some files outside of the project.

Re: NanoClaw moved from Apple Containers to Docker

#69
post #12

Can someone explain the special sauce of the claws compared to just use claude.ai etc

They're "always" running, so they can notify you out of the blue, without you having to initiate a conversation. It's really nice UX to get a message from my assistant saying "hey, it's time to leave for the gym, and don't forget the supermarket bag because you're picking up milk on the way back, as you've run out".

I just tell CC to create a cron job systemd unit

Re: NanoClaw moved from Apple Containers to Docker

#70
post #61

You don't need to use OpenClaw, NanoClaw or any of these new variants. You can literally use Codex, Claude Code, Gemini, OpenCode for the same thing. The only thing that it is missing from all of them is the communication channels because none of them come with native communication tools like OpenClaw. But this is not such a big deal. I made an open-source lightweight daemon in Go that fills that gap. All it does is…

What about heartbeats, cron etc? Seems like a major part of the 'claw' appeal is that it can work autonomously, monitor your email inbox for stuff and take action automatically...
Post reply on HN