Connecting OpenClaw to a messaging channel means you talk to the agent from a chat app instead of logging in to the server. The decisive part is not technical: it is deciding who may write to it, because whatever it can do, it does for whoever asks. The supported channels and the steps for each are in the project’s official documentation, which changes; here is what holds for all of them.
OpenClaw is a third-party project, and the channel is connected inside the program and the messaging app, not in our control panel. What falls to Interweb is the server and the network around it.
What always has to be done
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Choose the channel from the documentation’s list. Do not assume your favourite app is supported: look at the project’s current list.
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Create the identity on the messaging app’s side. Almost all of them ask for an account, a bot or a number, and give you an access token or a key. That is the credential that lets OpenClaw speak for you.
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Limit who can talk to the agent. If the documentation lets you name the authorised accounts, name only yours. If it does not, do not connect it to a channel open to strangers.
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Try a simple question and confirm in the logs that the request reached the server and went out to the model.
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Which identity to use, and why
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Better |
Worse |
| An account or bot just for the agent |
If the channel is compromised, you lose only that identity |
One more step to set up |
| Your personal account |
Quick to start |
The agent can see and send as you |
| A group with several people |
Useful for a team |
Any member can give the agent orders |
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Be careful with WhatsApp. If the channel is WhatsApp, check whether the connection is Meta’s official one or an unofficial one through a QR code. The second is not the route Meta intends and can get the number blocked. Use a number you can afford to lose, never the company’s main one. See Baileys or the Cloud API: the risk and the rules.
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Text the agent reads is not a trusted order. Messages, web pages and files can carry hidden instructions meant to trick it. The more open the channel, the greater the risk. Read OpenClaw security.
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If the channel stops answering, start with the simple things: is the process running? Has the credential expired or been revoked? Does the server have outbound internet access? Taking them in that order saves half an hour of going round in circles.
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Need a port opened or want to confirm the server’s internet access? Ask us what we see on the network side.
Open a support ticket
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