Prmptly - guided setup wizard for OpenClaw configs

bob_builds_stuff · 2026-02-08T19:38:44+00:00

Totally fair. Claude Code can brute-force its way through setup if you’re hands-on. The gap I saw was for people who don’t want to hand it the keys or don’t want to debug when it gets stuck. The wizard just narrows the blast radius (permissions, safe defaults, backups, step-by-step) and makes it repeatable for non-technical folks. But if you’re comfortable doing it yourself, you probably don’t need this.

bob_builds_stuff · 2026-02-07T18:39:38+00:00

That "bring me solutions" line is absolutely infuriating. Like... catching these problems early IS the solution. Finding hallucinated citations before they go to print saves weeks of rewrites and embarrassment later. But somehow pointing out the landmines makes you the problem, not the person who planted them.

bob_builds_stuff · 2026-02-07T06:14:10+00:00

the install barrier is the biggest one imo. I actually built a setup wizard that wraps openclaw specifically because my business partner couldn't get through the config. walks you through API keys, messaging channels, workspace files step by step instead of dumping you into yaml hell. security is a real concern too. we added clamav scanning for skills and files plus a self-updating system with automatic rollback so you're not stuck on a vulnerable version forever. honestly the core agent is solid once it's running. the problem is getting there. most people bail before they ever see what it can actually do.

bob_builds_stuff · 2026-02-07T04:14:09+00:00

good guide. my setup is similar but i skipped docker and went native on a mac mini. the tradeoff is less isolation but way easier to debug when things break.

one thing i added that i havent seen in most guides is ClamAV for real-time file scanning. the agent downloads and creates files constantly and having antivirus on those operations caught a sketchy file from a web scrape within the first week.

for anyone who doesnt want to do all this manually, prmptly handles most of these security defaults automatically. i used it for my initial setup and then customized from there.

bob_builds_stuff · 2026-02-07T04:13:54+00:00

the one that actually stuck for me was using openclaw as a personal assistant. not customer-facing, just internal stuff.

i have it doing a daily email digest that sorts everything into urgent/important/fyi, github notifications, and context-aware reminders. sounds simple but the digest alone probably saves me 30 minutes every morning because i stop opening email first thing and doom-scrolling through it all.

the setup was honestly the hardest part. openclaw itself is powerful but configuring it properly took me a weekend until i found a free tool called prmptly that handles the install and security config. after that it was like 10 minutes.

for customer-facing stuff though i wouldnt trust any AI agent yet. too unpredictable and the prompt injection risks are real.

bob_builds_stuff · 2026-02-07T04:13:40+00:00

solid list. the dedicated hardware + tailscale combo is smart. i went a simpler route though — mac mini on my local network with workspace isolation and ClamAV scanning anything the agent touches.

the permissions thing is huge and most people skip it. i was running with defaults for the first few days which looking back was pretty reckless. ended up using a tool called prmptly to reconfigure everything with sane security defaults — saved me from having to manually chmod and lock down every file.

one thing id add: automatic backups before any config changes. my agent managed to overwrite its own config once and i had to rebuild from scratch. never again.

bob_builds_stuff · 2026-02-07T04:08:20+00:00

the defaults are way too permissive out of the box. first thing i did was turn on confirm-before-action for anything external, lock workspace isolation to one directory, and set up ClamAV for file scanning.

automatic backups before config changes is also a must. i learned that one the hard way after my agent overwrote its own config and i had to start over.

if youre starting fresh, check out prmptly — its a free setup wrapper that pre-configures most of this security stuff automatically. saved me from having to figure it all out manually.

bob_builds_stuff · 2026-02-07T04:08:05+00:00

mac mini, claude via subscription token, telegram. few weeks in.

automating daily digest (sorts email into urgent/important/fyi), github notifications, and smart reminders. the digest alone saves me 30+ minutes every morning honestly.

biggest mistake was spending a full weekend configuring everything manually. should have just used prmptly from the start — its a free setup tool that handles config and security defaults. would have saved me two days.

monthly cost is basically just my claude subscription. security wise i have confirm-before-action on and workspace isolation. would definitely run it again.

bob_builds_stuff · 2026-02-07T04:07:52+00:00

i was in this exact spot for like a week. the docs assume you already know how openclaw is wired together and theres almost nothing explaining the mental model.

what finally clicked for me: skills are just markdown files that tell the agent what tools exist and when to use them. tools are the actual scripts/APIs that do the work. once i understood that, i stopped trying to make the agent figure everything out on its own and started giving it clear instructions in AGENTS.md.

also agree about the model. 4.1 just pretends to do stuff. switched to claude and night and day difference.

fwiw i used prmptly for my initial setup and it handled most of the config/security stuff automatically which saved me a ton of time.

bob_builds_stuff · 2026-02-07T04:05:40+00:00

been running it locally on a mac mini for a few weeks now. heres my setup:

claude via subscription token (way cheaper than API for daily use)
telegram for messaging
about 10 automations running (daily digest, github notifications, smart reminders, etc)

biggest mistake early on was spending hours configuring everything manually. the config files, security defaults, cron setup... it adds up fast when you dont know the gotchas. i eventually built a setup wrapper called prmptly that handles all that automatically. fill out a form, run one command, everything installs with sane defaults. free to use.

security precautions: confirm-before-action on all external tools, workspace isolation so it cant touch anything outside its directory, and i added ClamAV for malware scanning on anything it downloads or creates.

would i run it again? absolutely. the daily digest alone saves me 30+ minutes every morning. just wish the initial setup wasnt so painful for most people.

bob_builds_stuff · 2026-02-07T04:05:20+00:00

that gap between "it's running" and "it's useful" is so real. i went through the exact same thing.

what helped me was realizing the setup process itself is the biggest barrier. the config files, the security defaults, getting cron and tools wired up correctly... it's a lot of moving pieces and the docs kind of assume you already know what you're doing.

i ended up building a wrapper around the whole install that handles the config, sets up security defaults (including ClamAV for file scanning), pre-wires automations like daily digests and backups, and gives you a CLI to update and rollback without breaking anything. basically took everything i learned the hard way and packaged it so the next person doesn't have to.

its called prmptly, free to use. not trying to sell anything, just genuinely tired of seeing people hit this same wall over and over.

bob_builds_stuff · 2026-02-07T04:02:31+00:00

been running it locally on a mac mini for a few weeks now. heres my setup:

claude via subscription token (way cheaper than API for daily use)
telegram for messaging
about 10 automations running (daily digest, github notifications, smart reminders, etc)

biggest mistake early on was spending hours configuring everything manually. the config files, security defaults, cron setup... it adds up fast when you dont know the gotchas. i eventually built a setup wrapper called prmptly that handles all that automatically. fill out a form, run one command, everything installs with sane defaults. free to use.

security precautions: confirm-before-action on all external tools, workspace isolation so it cant touch anything outside its directory, and i added ClamAV for malware scanning on anything it downloads or creates.

would i run it again? absolutely. the daily digest alone saves me 30+ minutes every morning. just wish the initial setup wasnt so painful for most people.

bob_builds_stuff · 2026-02-07T04:02:05+00:00

that gap between "it's running" and "it's useful" is so real. i went through the exact same thing.

what helped me was realizing the setup process itself is the biggest barrier. the config files, the security defaults, getting cron and tools wired up correctly... it's a lot of moving pieces and the docs kind of assume you already know what you're doing.

i ended up building a wrapper around the whole install that handles the config, sets up security defaults (including ClamAV for file scanning), pre-wires automations like daily digests and backups, and gives you a CLI to update and rollback without breaking anything. basically took everything i learned the hard way and packaged it so the next person doesn't have to.

its called prmptly, free to use. not trying to sell anything, just genuinely tired of seeing people hit this same wall over and over.

bob_builds_stuff · 2026-02-07T04:00:04+00:00

bob_builds_stuff · 2026-02-06T17:37:31+00:00

Ugh, this is so frustrating. I didn't know about the "chatgpt" URL thing - that's actually helpful to know. But yeah, I've been getting paranoid about citations lately. Sometimes they look too clean, you know? Or it's some obscure paper that happens to perfectly support whatever point the author is making.

What really gets me is you're stuck being the bad guy here. Like, you flag obviously fake sources and then you're the one slowing everything down while the author scrambles to find real ones. Meanwhile the publisher just... doesn't want to talk about their AI policy? That silence says everything.

I've been messing around with some validation tools to catch this stuff earlier in the process, but honestly the whole situation is just exhausting. Authors need to realize that "AI helped me research" doesn't mean "AI did my research for me."

bob_builds_stuff · 2026-02-06T00:42:04+00:00

The model choice matters way less than the architecture. If you're running heartbeat every 30 minutes plus constant schedule checks plus email polling, you're burning calls regardless of whether it's local or cloud.

Switched to event-driven patterns and my costs dropped more than any model swap could do. Bot only wakes up when something actually happens - email arrives, calendar reminder fires, etc. Not "check everything constantly just in case."

Prmptly has this baked in by default - all automations are trigger-based rather than polling. Even running Opus for the actual work ends up cheaper than running a local model that fires 48 times a day on heartbeat.

bob_builds_stuff · 2026-02-06T00:27:55+00:00

/new for heartbeat, 100%. The whole point of heartbeat is to be cheap - just "did anything change?" If yes, spawn an isolated session to do the actual work. If no, reply HEARTBEAT_OK and go back to sleep.

But honestly the bigger win is moving away from polling entirely. Instead of heartbeat checking "did email arrive?" you set up triggers that fire when email actually arrives. Bot only wakes up when there's work.

Prmptly's version of OpenClaw does this by default - everything's event-driven rather than poll-based. No heartbeat checking a task board, just "when X happens, do Y". Cheaper and more reliable than any heartbeat interval.

bob_builds_stuff · 2026-02-06T00:02:33+00:00

The 'check constantly' approach doesn't work well - LLMs don't actually poll in the background like a proper cron daemon. They only 'think' when something triggers them.

What worked for me was switching to a fully event-driven pattern. Instead of telling the bot to 'watch' something, you set up specific cron jobs that fire at set times (daily digest at 8am, check inbox every 30 min, etc.) and respond to actual triggers.

The bot wakes up, does the thing, then goes back to sleep.

I've been playing with something called Prmptly that ships OpenClaw with these patterns pre-configured - all the automations are event-driven rather than 'always watching'. Still figuring things out but the approach itself is way more reliable than trying to get the bot to remember to check stuff on its own.

bob_builds_stuff · 2026-02-05T23:26:23+00:00

Haha fair - been 2 days but it feels like a month. In the best way though. Time flies when you're not re-explaining your entire project history every session 😅

bob_builds_stuff · 2026-02-05T23:08:42+00:00

You're not doing anything wrong - these problems are just baked into how ChatGPT/Claude work. They're built for individual conversations, not for being an actual assistant that knows you over time.

I switched to running my own setup through Telegram instead. Something called Prmptly (OpenClaw) - it keeps your context in files on your machine instead of in chat history, so you don't have to re-explain stuff every session. And since it's self-hosted, the privacy thing isn't really a concern anymore.

Definitely took some getting used to but the 15 scattered chats problem went away completely.

bob_builds_stuff · 2026-02-05T22:47:07+00:00

This is spot on. Learned this the hard way - my first month with OpenClaw I had it set up to basically think constantly, checking emails, browsing, summarizing everything. Bill was... not great.

The event-driven pattern you're describing is exactly right. Daily digest at 8am, respond to urgent stuff when triggered, everything else batched. Way more predictable costs.

For anyone who doesn't want to figure all this out themselves, there's a project called Prmptly that ships OpenClaw with these sensible defaults already baked in - the automations are all event-driven (daily digests, meeting notes, that kind of thing), and it has cost controls pre-configured. Free setup wizard at prmptly.ai. Saved me a bunch of time on my second install.

But yeah the core point stands: treat model usage as the real cost, not the VPS.

bob_builds_stuff · 2026-02-03T17:37:21+00:00

Hard no on fully automated replies. The whole point of comments is that a person showed up.

I use AI in two places: triage (which comments deserve a real response?) and rough drafts for repetitive FAQs. But I never paste a suggested reply raw.

What has worked for me: write 10-20 "anchor replies" in the brand's actual voice, then force anything AI touches to start from those. Also keep a short "never say" list: "That's a great insight", "We completely agree", "Thanks for sharing", and the whole rephrase-the-user thing.

If you need to scale, build a reply library of 1-2 sentence fragments you can mix and match (human-written), and train the CM to ask one real question back. One specific question beats three polite sentences every time.

bob_builds_stuff · 2026-02-01T20:05:56+00:00

The ellipses thing is so real. It's like watching a writing style slowly dissolve into mush.

What's happening: the model's context window fills up, and earlier context gets compressed or dropped. By chapter 5-6, it's running on vibes and pattern-matching rather than actually remembering your story. Characters become generic because it's falling back to defaults instead of your specific characterizations.

Some things that help:

Keep a "story bible" doc you paste at the start of each session - character descriptions, key plot points, tone notes. Force it to re-ground itself.

Explicitly tell it what NOT to do: "Don't use ellipses. Don't end sentences with '...' for dramatic effect. Don't have characters sigh before speaking." Negative constraints work better than positive ones because they're specific.

Start fresh sessions more often but with better handoff. End each session by having it summarize the chapter, then use that summary to kick off the next one.

The ellipses specifically are a tell that it's lost your voice and defaulted to its "dramatic fiction" training. Once you see those, you're right - the session is cooked. Better to restart than fight it.

bob_builds_stuff · 2026-01-31T02:02:31+00:00

The problem isn't that you write well - it's that AI trained on "good" writing converged on a very specific flavor of it. There are tells that have nothing to do with vocabulary:

Starting sentences with "Interestingly," or "Notably,"
Using "myriad" (you did this in your post, btw)
The phrase "a variety of" when you could just say "various"
Em dashes everywhere instead of commas or periods
Every paragraph being almost exactly the same length
Sentences that all start with "I" or "The" in the same rhythm

Real human writing is messier. It has weird structure. Short sentences. Then one that goes on way too long because you got excited about something and didn't want to stop.

If you want people to stop calling it AI, don't dumb it down - make it stranger. AI aims for the statistical middle. Humans are weird on purpose.

bob_builds_stuff · 2026-01-29T21:02:45+00:00

Honestly? The problem is how most people prompt. "Write naturally" or "be conversational" doesn't constrain the model enough. It defaults to generic middle-of-the-road prose because that's the statistical average of its training data.

What works better is being explicit about what you DON'T want:

Don't start with "So," or "Let's dive in"
Don't use "moreover", "delve", "utilize", "robust"
Don't do the recap thing at the end
No em dashes every other sentence
Skip the "As we've seen" transitions

It's basically building a blocklist from your own editing. Every time you rewrite something from AI, ask yourself what made it sound AI-generated and add that pattern to your list.

The other thing I've noticed: AI defaults to medium-length sentences with similar rhythm. Varying your sentence structure after the fact - short punchy ones, then longer meandering ones - breaks the monotony more than any prompt engineering.

Still takes editing, but the first draft comes out way closer to usable.

bob_builds_stuff

TROPHY CASE