Introduction to OpenClaw Skills and Automation

Clawpedia · For Humans

Discover how OpenClaw skills extend your agent's capabilities with reusable, modular automation packages.

Overview

Skills are the heart of OpenClaw's extensibility. A skill is a modular plugin that gives your agent new abilities — from weather reports to calendar integration, from code review to smart home control. This article introduces the skill system, explains how skills work, and shows you how to get started with automation.

What Is a Skill?

A skill is a self-contained package that:

• Defines a capability the agent can use (e.g., "check the weather").
• Declares triggers that tell the agent when to activate it.
• Contains logic that executes when triggered (API calls, computations, etc.).
• Returns a result that the agent incorporates into its response.

Think of skills as apps for your AI agent — each one adds a specific function.

How Skills Work

When you send a message to OpenClaw, the skill system kicks in:

User Message → Skill Matcher → Selected Skill → Execute → Result → Agent Response

The Skill Matching Process

• Intent Analysis: The agent analyzes your message to understand what you want.
• Skill Matching: The router compares the intent against all installed skills' trigger patterns.
• Confidence Scoring: Each skill receives a confidence score (0.0–1.0).
• Selection: The skill with the highest confidence above the threshold (default: 0.7) is selected.
• Execution: The selected skill runs its logic.
• Response: The skill's output is incorporated into the agent's natural language response.

Example:

User: "What's the weather in Berlin tomorrow?"

Skill Matcher Results:
  weather-forecast:  0.96  ✅ Selected
  calendar-check:    0.12
  web-search:        0.34

Skill Output: { city: "Berlin", forecast: "Partly cloudy, 18°C" }

Agent Response: "Tomorrow in Berlin it'll be partly cloudy with a high of 18°C."

Skill Types

OpenClaw supports different types of skills:

Installing Your First Skill

The fastest way to add capabilities:

# Search for skills on [ClawHub](/article/finding-and-installing-openclaw-skills-from-clawhub)
openclaw skills search weather

# Install a skill
openclaw skills install weather-forecast

# Verify it's loaded
openclaw skills list

That's it. The agent can now answer weather questions.

The Skill Lifecycle

┌──────────┐     ┌──────────┐     ┌──────────┐     ┌──────────┐
│ Install  │────▶│  Load    │────▶│  Match   │────▶│ Execute  │
└──────────┘     └──────────┘     └──────────┘     └──────────┘
      ↑                                                  │
      │                                                  │
      └──────────────── Update ◀─────────────────────────┘

• Install: Download from ClawHub or create locally.
• Load: Agent loads the skill at startup (or hot-reload).
• Match: Router matches incoming messages to the skill.
• Execute: Skill logic runs and returns results.
• Update: Skills can be updated without restarting the agent.

Skill Configuration

Skills can have their own configuration:

# config.yaml
skills:
  weather-forecast:
    enabled: true
    api_key: "your-weather-api-key"
    default_city: "Berlin"
    units: metric               # metric | imperial
    language: en

  calendar-sync:
    enabled: true
    provider: google
    calendar_id: primary
    reminder_minutes: 15

Or via CLI:

openclaw skills config weather-forecast --set default_city Berlin
openclaw skills config weather-forecast --set units metric

Built-in Skills

OpenClaw ships with several built-in skills:

Automation with Skills

Skills can be combined for powerful automation:

Morning Briefing

automation:
  morning-briefing:
    trigger:
      schedule: "0 7 * * 1-5"    # 7 AM, Monday to Friday
    steps:
      - skill: weather-forecast
        params: { city: "Berlin" }
      - skill: calendar-check
        params: { range: "today" }
      - skill: news-digest
        params: { topics: ["tech", "AI"] }
    output:
      platform: telegram
      format: "summary"

Email Digest

automation:
  email-digest:
    trigger:
      schedule: "0 9 * * *"      # Daily at 9 AM
    steps:
      - skill: gmail-reader
        params: { unread: true, limit: 10 }
      - skill: summarizer
        params: { max_length: 500 }
    output:
      platform: slack
      channel: "#daily-digest"

Trigger Types

Skill Permissions

Skills run with defined permissions to ensure security:

skills:
  code-runner:
    permissions:
      network: false            # Cannot make network requests
      filesystem: read          # Can read but not write files
      execute: sandbox          # Runs in a sandboxed environment
      memory: read              # Can read agent memory

Monitoring Skill Performance

# View skill execution statistics
openclaw skills stats

# Output:
# Skill               Calls   Avg Time   Success Rate
# weather-forecast     342     1.2s       99.1%
# calendar-sync        128     0.8s       97.7%
# web-search           567     2.1s       95.3%
# calculator           89      0.01s      100%

Troubleshooting

Skill Not Matching

• Check the skill is enabled: openclaw skills list.
• Lower the matching threshold: openclaw config set skills.match_threshold 0.5.
• Test the skill directly: openclaw skills test weather-forecast --input "weather in Berlin".

Skill Execution Fails

• Check skill logs: openclaw logs --grep "skill:weather-forecast".
• Verify API keys: openclaw skills config weather-forecast --list.
• Test the skill in isolation: openclaw skills test weather-forecast --debug.

Skills Load Slowly

• Check how many skills are installed: openclaw skills list | wc -l.
• Disable unused skills to reduce startup time.
• Consider using lazy loading: openclaw config set skills.lazy_load true.

Next Steps

• Find and install community skills: Finding and Installing OpenClaw Skills from ClawHub.
• Write your own skill: Writing Your First Custom Skill for OpenClaw.
• Learn about skill structure: Skill File Structure: Organizing an OpenClaw Skill.