PicoClaw: Ultra-Efficient AI Assistant in Go

$10 Hardware · 10MB RAM · ms Boot · Let's Go, PicoClaw!

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PicoClaw is an independent open-source project initiated by Sipeed, written entirely in Go from scratch — not a fork of OpenClaw, NanoBot, or any other project.

PicoClaw is an ultra-lightweight personal AI assistant inspired by NanoBot. It was rebuilt from the ground up in Go through a "self-bootstrapping" process — the AI Agent itself drove the architecture migration and code optimization.

Runs on $10 hardware with <10MB RAM — that's 99% less memory than OpenClaw and 98% cheaper than a Mac mini!

2026-05-11 🛒 LicheeRV-Claw on AliExpress! You can now purchase LicheeRV-Claw from AliExpress, making it easier to try PicoClaw on compact RISC-V hardware.

2026-05-28 🚀 v0.2.9 Released! MCP server management in Web UI, configurable Sogou-backed web search, tool feedback animation in channels, pretty_print and disable_escape_html defaults, and numerous bug fixes across providers and channels.

2026-05-14 🚀 v0.2.8 Released! MCP CLI commands (show, add, list, remove, test, edit), empty object instead of null for MCP tool parameters, and build fixes.

2026-05-07 🚀 v0.2.7 Released! Configurable Sogou-backed web search, channel tool feedback animation, linter fixes.

2026-04-23 🚀 v0.2.6 Released! Hooks with respond action and comprehensive documentation, isolation support, help banner fix.

2026-04-11 🚀 v0.2.5 Released! Zoneinfo from TZ/ZONEINFO env, Matrix CommonMark rendering alignment, read_file by lines.

2026-03-31 📱 Android Support! PicoClaw now runs on Android! Download the APK at picoclaw.io

2026-03-25 🚀 v0.2.4 Released! Agent architecture overhaul (SubTurn, Hooks, Steering, EventBus), WeChat/WeCom integration, security hardening (.security.yml, sensitive data filtering), new providers (AWS Bedrock, Azure, Xiaomi MiMo), and 35 bug fixes. PicoClaw has reached 26K Stars!

2026-03-17 🚀 v0.2.3 Released! System tray UI (Windows & Linux), sub-agent status query (spawn_status), experimental Gateway hot-reload, Cron security gating, and 2 security fixes. PicoClaw has reached 25K Stars!

2026-03-09 🎉 v0.2.1 — Biggest update yet! MCP protocol support, 4 new channels (Matrix/IRC/WeCom/Discord Proxy), 3 new providers (Kimi/Minimax/Avian), vision pipeline, JSONL memory store, model routing.

2026-02-28 📦 v0.2.0 released with Docker Compose and Web UI Launcher support.

🪶 Ultra-lightweight: Core memory footprint <10MB — 99% smaller than OpenClaw.*

💰 Minimal cost: Efficient enough to run on $10 hardware — 98% cheaper than a Mac mini.

⚡️ Lightning-fast boot: 400x faster startup. Boots in <1s even on a 0.6GHz single-core processor.

🌍 Truly portable: Single binary across RISC-V, ARM, MIPS, and x86 architectures. One binary, runs everywhere!

🤖 AI-bootstrapped: Pure Go native implementation — 95% of core code was generated by an Agent and fine-tuned through human-in-the-loop review.

🔌 MCP support: Native Model Context Protocol integration — connect any MCP server to extend Agent capabilities.

👁️ Vision pipeline: Send images and files directly to the Agent — automatic base64 encoding for multimodal LLMs.

🧠 Smart routing: Rule-based model routing — simple queries go to lightweight models, saving API costs.

*Recent builds may use 10-20MB due to rapid PR merges. Resource optimization is planned. Boot speed comparison based on 0.8GHz single-core benchmarks (see table below).

	OpenClaw	NanoBot	PicoClaw
Language	TypeScript	Python	Go
RAM	>1GB	>100MB	< 10MB*
Boot time (0.8GHz core)	>500s	>30s	<1s
Cost	Mac Mini $599	Most Linux boards ~$50	Any Linux board from $10

Hardware Compatibility List — See all tested boards, from $5 RISC-V to Raspberry Pi to Android phones. Your board not listed? Submit a PR!

PicoClaw can be deployed on virtually any Linux device!

• $9.9 LicheeRV-Nano E(Ethernet) or W(WiFi6) edition, for a minimal home assistant
• $30~50 NanoKVM, or $100 NanoKVM-Pro, for automated server operations
• $50 MaixCAM or $100 MaixCAM2, for smart surveillance

🌟 More Deployment Cases Await!

Visit picoclaw.io — the official website auto-detects your platform and provides one-click download. No need to manually pick an architecture.

Alternatively, download the binary for your platform from the GitHub Releases page.

Prerequisites:

• Go 1.25+
• Node.js 22+ and pnpm 10.33.0+ for Web UI / launcher builds

git clone https://github.com/sipeed/picoclaw.git

cd picoclaw
make deps

# Install frontend dependencies
(cd web/frontend && pnpm install --frozen-lockfile)

# Build the core binary for the current platform
make build

# Build the Web UI Launcher (required for WebUI mode)
make build-launcher

# Build core binaries for all Makefile-managed platforms
make build-all

# Build for Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W
# 32-bit: make build-linux-arm
# 64-bit: make build-linux-arm64
make build-pi-zero

# Build and install
make install

Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W: Use the binary that matches your OS: 32-bit Raspberry Pi OS -> make build-linux-arm; 64-bit -> make build-linux-arm64. Or run make build-pi-zero to build both.

The WebUI Launcher provides a browser-based interface for configuration and chat. This is the easiest way to get started — no command-line knowledge required.

Option 1: Double-click (Desktop)

After downloading from picoclaw.io, double-click picoclaw-launcher (or picoclaw-launcher.exe on Windows). Your browser will open automatically at http://localhost:18800.

Option 2: Command line

picoclaw-launcher
# Open http://localhost:18800 in your browser

picoclaw-launcher -public

Getting started:

Open the WebUI, then: 1) Configure a Provider (add your LLM API key) -> 2) Configure a Channel (e.g., Telegram) -> 3) Start the Gateway -> 4) Chat!

For detailed WebUI documentation, see docs.picoclaw.io.

# 1. Clone this repo
git clone https://github.com/sipeed/picoclaw.git
cd picoclaw

# 2. First run — auto-generates docker/data/config.json then exits
#    (only triggers when both config.json and workspace/ are missing)
docker compose -f docker/docker-compose.yml --profile launcher up
# The container prints "First-run setup complete." and stops.

# 3. Set your API keys
vim docker/data/config.json

# 4. Start
docker compose -f docker/docker-compose.yml --profile launcher up -d
# Open http://localhost:18800

# Check logs
docker compose -f docker/docker-compose.yml logs -f

# Stop
docker compose -f docker/docker-compose.yml --profile launcher down

# Update
docker compose -f docker/docker-compose.yml pull
docker compose -f docker/docker-compose.yml --profile launcher up -d

Give your decade-old phone a second life! Turn it into a smart AI Assistant with PicoClaw.

Option 1: APK Install

Preview:

Download the APK from picoclaw.io and install directly. No Termux required!

Option 2: Termux

For a full command-line setup checklist, see the Android Termux Guide.

Terminal Launcher (for resource-constrained environments)

1. Install Termux (download from GitHub Releases, or search in F-Droid / Google Play)
2. Run the following commands:

# Download the latest release
wget https://github.com/sipeed/picoclaw/releases/latest/download/picoclaw_Linux_arm64.tar.gz
tar xzf picoclaw_Linux_arm64.tar.gz
pkg install proot
termux-chroot ./picoclaw onboard   # chroot provides a standard Linux filesystem layout

Then follow the Terminal Launcher section below to complete configuration.

For minimal environments where only the picoclaw core binary is available (no Launcher UI), you can configure everything via the command line and a JSON config file.

1. Initialize

picoclaw onboard

This creates ~/.picoclaw/config.json and the workspace directory.

2. Configure (~/.picoclaw/config.json)

{
  "agents": {
    "defaults": {
      "model_name": "gpt-5.4"
    }
  },
  "model_list": [
    {
      "model_name": "gpt-5.4",
      "model": "openai/gpt-5.4"
      // api_key is now loaded from .security.yml
    }
  ]
}

See config/config.example.json in the repo for a complete configuration template with all available options.

Please note: config.example.json format is version 0, with sensitive codes in it, and will be auto migrated to version 1+, then, the config.json will only store insensitive data, the sensitive codes will be stored in .security.yml, if you need manually modify the codes, please see docs/security/security_configuration.md for more details.

3. Chat

# One-shot question
picoclaw agent -m "What is 2+2?"

# Interactive mode
picoclaw agent

# Start gateway for chat app integration
picoclaw gateway

PicoClaw supports 30+ LLM providers through the model_list configuration. Use the protocol/model format:

* AWS Bedrock requires build tag: go build -tags bedrock. Set api_base to a region name (e.g., us-east-1) for automatic endpoint resolution across all AWS partitions (aws, aws-cn, aws-us-gov). When using a full endpoint URL instead, you must also configure AWS_REGION via environment variable or AWS config/profile.

** Azure OpenAI uses api_key when set. If api_key is omitted, the provider falls back to Microsoft Entra ID via DefaultAzureCredential (env vars, workload identity, managed identity, Azure CLI, etc.). The Entra ID path requires build tag: go build -tags azidentity.

{
  "model_list": [
    {
      "model_name": "local-llama",
      "model": "ollama/llama3.1:8b",
      "api_base": "http://localhost:11434/v1"
    }
  ]
}

{
  "model_list": [
    {
      "model_name": "local-vllm",
      "model": "vllm/your-model",
      "api_base": "http://localhost:8000/v1"
    }
  ]
}

Talk to your PicoClaw through 19+ messaging platforms:

All webhook-based channels share a single Gateway HTTP server (gateway.host:gateway.port, default 127.0.0.1:18790). Feishu uses WebSocket/SDK mode and does not use the shared HTTP server.

Log verbosity is controlled by gateway.log_level (default: warn). Supported values: debug, info, warn, error, fatal. Can also be set via PICOCLAW_LOG_LEVEL. See Configuration for details.

For detailed channel setup instructions, see Chat Apps Configuration.

PicoClaw can search the web to provide up-to-date information. Configure in tools.web:

PicoClaw includes built-in tools for file operations, code execution, scheduling, and more. See Tools Configuration for details.

Skills are modular capabilities that extend your Agent. They are loaded from SKILL.md files in your workspace.

Install skills from ClawHub:

picoclaw skills search "web scraping"
picoclaw skills install <skill-name>

Configure skill registries:

Add to your config.json:

{
  "tools": {
    "skills": {
      "registries": {
        "clawhub": {
          "auth_token": "your-clawhub-token"
        },
        "github": {
          "base_url": "https://github.com",
          "auth_token": "your-github-token",
          "proxy": ""
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

tools.skills.github.* is deprecated. Use tools.skills.registries.github.* instead.

For more details, see Tools Configuration - Skills.

PicoClaw natively supports MCP — connect any MCP server to extend your Agent's capabilities with external tools and data sources.

{
  "tools": {
    "mcp": {
      "enabled": true,
      "servers": {
        "filesystem": {
          "enabled": true,
          "command": "npx",
          "args": ["-y", "@modelcontextprotocol/server-filesystem", "/tmp"]
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

You can manage common MCP setups directly from the CLI instead of editing JSON by hand:

picoclaw mcp add filesystem -- npx -y @modelcontextprotocol/server-filesystem /tmp
picoclaw mcp list
picoclaw mcp test filesystem

picoclaw mcp is a configuration manager: it updates config.json under tools.mcp.servers, but it does not keep the server process running itself.

Use picoclaw mcp edit when you need advanced fields that are not covered by picoclaw mcp add. For example, picoclaw mcp add supports --deferred and --env-file, while picoclaw mcp edit is still useful for direct JSON editing and uncommon MCP settings.

For full MCP configuration (stdio, SSE, HTTP transports, Tool Discovery), see Tools Configuration - MCP. For CLI usage and examples, see MCP Server CLI.

Connect PicoClaw to the Agent Social Network simply by sending a single message via the CLI or any integrated Chat App.

Read https://clawdchat.ai/skill.md and follow the instructions to join ClawdChat.ai

PicoClaw supports scheduled reminders and recurring tasks through the cron tool:

• One-time reminders: "Remind me in 10 minutes" -> triggers once after 10min
• Recurring tasks: "Remind me every 2 hours" -> triggers every 2 hours
• Cron expressions: "Remind me at 9am daily" -> uses cron expression

See docs/reference/cron.md for current schedule types, execution modes, command-job gates, and persistence details.

For detailed guides beyond this README:

PRs welcome! The codebase is intentionally small and readable.

See our Community Roadmap and CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines.

Developer group building, join after your first merged PR!

User Groups:

Discord: https://discord.gg/V4sAZ9XWpN

WeChat: