PicoClaw: Ultra-Efficient AI Assistant in Go

$10 Hardware · 10MB RAM · 1s Boot · 皮皮虾，我们走！

🦐 PicoClaw is an ultra-lightweight personal AI Assistant inspired by nanobot, refactored from the ground up in Go through a self-bootstrapping process, where the AI agent itself drove the entire architectural 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!

Caution

🚨 SECURITY & OFFICIAL CHANNELS / 安全声明

NO CRYPTO: PicoClaw has NO official token/coin. All claims on pump.fun or other trading platforms are SCAMS.
OFFICIAL DOMAIN: The ONLY official website is picoclaw.io, and company website is sipeed.com
Warning: Many .ai/.org/.com/.net/... domains are registered by third parties.
Warning: picoclaw is in early development now and may have unresolved network security issues. Do not deploy to production environments before the v1.0 release.
Note: picoclaw has recently merged a lot of PRs, which may result in a larger memory footprint (10–20MB) in the latest versions. We plan to prioritize resource optimization as soon as the current feature set reaches a stable state.

📢 News

2026-02-16 🎉 PicoClaw hit 12K stars in one week! Thank you all for your support! PicoClaw is growing faster than we ever imagined. Given the high volume of PRs, we urgently need community maintainers. Our volunteer roles and roadmap are officially posted here —we can’t wait to have you on board!

2026-02-13 🎉 PicoClaw hit 5000 stars in 4days! Thank you for the community! There are so many PRs&issues come in (during Chinese New Year holidays), we are finalizing the Project Roadmap and setting up the Developer Group to accelerate PicoClaw's development.
🚀 Call to Action: Please submit your feature requests in GitHub Discussions. We will review and prioritize them during our upcoming weekly meeting.

2026-02-09 🎉 PicoClaw Launched! Built in 1 day to bring AI Agents to $10 hardware with <10MB RAM. 🦐 PicoClaw，Let's Go！

✨ Features

🪶 Ultra-Lightweight: <10MB Memory footprint — 99% smaller than Clawdbot - core functionality.

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

⚡️ Lightning Fast: 400X Faster startup time, boot in 1 second even in 0.6GHz single core.

🌍 True Portability: Single self-contained binary across RISC-V, ARM, and x86, One-click to Go!

🤖 AI-Bootstrapped: Autonomous Go-native implementation — 95% Agent-generated core with human-in-the-loop refinement.

	OpenClaw	NanoBot	PicoClaw
Language	TypeScript	Python	Go
RAM	>1GB	>100MB	< 10MB
Startup (0.8GHz core)	>500s	>30s	<1s
Cost	Mac Mini 599$	Most Linux SBC ~50$	Any Linux Board As low as 10$

🦾 Demonstration

🛠️ Standard Assistant Workflows

🧩 Full-Stack Engineer	🗂️ Logging & Planning Management	🔎 Web Search & Learning

Develop • Deploy • Scale	Schedule • Automate • Memory	Discovery • Insights • Trends

🐜 Innovative Low-Footprint Deploy

PicoClaw can be deployed on almost any Linux device!

$9.9 LicheeRV-Nano E(Ethernet) or W(WiFi6) version, for Minimal Home Assistant
$30~50 NanoKVM, or $100 NanoKVM-Pro for Automated Server Maintenance
$50 MaixCAM or $100 MaixCAM2 for Smart Monitoring

picoclaw_detect_person.mp4

🌟 More Deployment Cases Await！

📦 Install

Install with precompiled binary

Download the firmware for your platform from the release page.

Install from source (latest features, recommended for development)

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

cd picoclaw
make deps

# Build, no need to install
make build

# Build for multiple platforms
make build-all

# Build And Install
make install

🐳 Docker Compose

You can also run PicoClaw using Docker Compose without installing anything locally.

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

# 2. Set your API keys
cp config/config.example.json config/config.json
vim config/config.json      # Set DISCORD_BOT_TOKEN, API keys, etc.

# 3. Build & Start
docker compose --profile gateway up -d

# 4. Check logs
docker compose logs -f picoclaw-gateway

# 5. Stop
docker compose --profile gateway down

Agent Mode (One-shot)

# Ask a question
docker compose run --rm picoclaw-agent -m "What is 2+2?"

# Interactive mode
docker compose run --rm picoclaw-agent

Rebuild

docker compose --profile gateway build --no-cache
docker compose --profile gateway up -d

🚀 Quick Start

Tip

Set your API key in ~/.picoclaw/config.json. Get API keys: OpenRouter (LLM) · Zhipu (LLM) Web search is optional - get free Brave Search API (2000 free queries/month) or use built-in auto fallback.

1. Initialize

picoclaw onboard

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

{
  "agents": {
    "defaults": {
      "workspace": "~/.picoclaw/workspace",
      "model": "glm-4.7",
      "max_tokens": 8192,
      "temperature": 0.7,
      "max_tool_iterations": 20
    }
  },
  "providers": {
    "openrouter": {
      "api_key": "xxx",
      "api_base": "https://openrouter.ai/api/v1"
    }
  },
  "tools": {
    "web": {
      "brave": {
        "enabled": false,
        "api_key": "YOUR_BRAVE_API_KEY",
        "max_results": 5
      },
      "duckduckgo": {
        "enabled": true,
        "max_results": 5
      }
    }
  }
}

3. Get API Keys

LLM Provider: OpenRouter · Zhipu · Anthropic · OpenAI · Gemini
Web Search (optional): Brave Search - Free tier available (2000 requests/month)

Note: See config.example.json for a complete configuration template.

4. Chat

picoclaw agent -m "What is 2+2?"

That's it! You have a working AI assistant in 2 minutes.

💬 Chat Apps

Talk to your picoclaw through Telegram, Discord, DingTalk, or LINE

Channel	Setup
Telegram	Easy (just a token)
Discord	Easy (bot token + intents)
QQ	Easy (AppID + AppSecret)
DingTalk	Medium (app credentials)
LINE	Medium (credentials + webhook URL)

Telegram (Recommended)

1. Create a bot

Open Telegram, search @BotFather
Send /newbot, follow prompts
Copy the token

2. Configure

{
  "channels": {
    "telegram": {
      "enabled": true,
      "token": "YOUR_BOT_TOKEN",
      "allowFrom": ["YOUR_USER_ID"]
    }
  }
}

Get your user ID from @userinfobot on Telegram.

3. Run

picoclaw gateway

Discord

1. Create a bot

Go to https://discord.com/developers/applications
Create an application → Bot → Add Bot
Copy the bot token

2. Enable intents

In the Bot settings, enable MESSAGE CONTENT INTENT
(Optional) Enable SERVER MEMBERS INTENT if you plan to use allow lists based on member data

3. Get your User ID

Discord Settings → Advanced → enable Developer Mode
Right-click your avatar → Copy User ID

4. Configure

{
  "channels": {
    "discord": {
      "enabled": true,
      "token": "YOUR_BOT_TOKEN",
      "allowFrom": ["YOUR_USER_ID"]
    }
  }
}

5. Invite the bot

OAuth2 → URL Generator
Scopes: bot
Bot Permissions: Send Messages, Read Message History
Open the generated invite URL and add the bot to your server

6. Run

picoclaw gateway

QQ

1. Create a bot

Go to QQ Open Platform
Create an application → Get AppID and AppSecret

2. Configure

{
  "channels": {
    "qq": {
      "enabled": true,
      "app_id": "YOUR_APP_ID",
      "app_secret": "YOUR_APP_SECRET",
      "allow_from": []
    }
  }
}

Set allow_from to empty to allow all users, or specify QQ numbers to restrict access.

3. Run

picoclaw gateway

DingTalk

1. Create a bot

Go to Open Platform
Create an internal app
Copy Client ID and Client Secret

2. Configure

{
  "channels": {
    "dingtalk": {
      "enabled": true,
      "client_id": "YOUR_CLIENT_ID",
      "client_secret": "YOUR_CLIENT_SECRET",
      "allow_from": []
    }
  }
}

Set allow_from to empty to allow all users, or specify QQ numbers to restrict access.

3. Run

picoclaw gateway

LINE

1. Create a LINE Official Account

Go to LINE Developers Console
Create a provider → Create a Messaging API channel
Copy Channel Secret and Channel Access Token

2. Configure

{
  "channels": {
    "line": {
      "enabled": true,
      "channel_secret": "YOUR_CHANNEL_SECRET",
      "channel_access_token": "YOUR_CHANNEL_ACCESS_TOKEN",
      "webhook_host": "0.0.0.0",
      "webhook_port": 18791,
      "webhook_path": "/webhook/line",
      "allow_from": []
    }
  }
}

3. Set up Webhook URL

LINE requires HTTPS for webhooks. Use a reverse proxy or tunnel:

# Example with ngrok
ngrok http 18791

Then set the Webhook URL in LINE Developers Console to https://your-domain/webhook/line and enable Use webhook.

4. Run

picoclaw gateway

In group chats, the bot responds only when @mentioned. Replies quote the original message.

Docker Compose: Add ports: ["18791:18791"] to the picoclaw-gateway service to expose the webhook port.

Join the Agent Social Network

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

⚙️ Configuration

Config file: ~/.picoclaw/config.json

Workspace Layout

PicoClaw stores data in your configured workspace (default: ~/.picoclaw/workspace):

~/.picoclaw/workspace/
├── sessions/          # Conversation sessions and history
├── memory/           # Long-term memory (MEMORY.md)
├── state/            # Persistent state (last channel, etc.)
├── cron/             # Scheduled jobs database
├── skills/           # Custom skills
├── AGENTS.md         # Agent behavior guide
├── HEARTBEAT.md      # Periodic task prompts (checked every 30 min)
├── IDENTITY.md       # Agent identity
├── SOUL.md           # Agent soul
├── TOOLS.md          # Tool descriptions
└── USER.md           # User preferences

🔒 Security Sandbox

PicoClaw runs in a sandboxed environment by default. The agent can only access files and execute commands within the configured workspace.

Default Configuration

{
  "agents": {
    "defaults": {
      "workspace": "~/.picoclaw/workspace",
      "restrict_to_workspace": true
    }
  }
}

Option	Default	Description
`workspace`	`~/.picoclaw/workspace`	Working directory for the agent
`restrict_to_workspace`	`true`	Restrict file/command access to workspace

Protected Tools

When restrict_to_workspace: true, the following tools are sandboxed:

Tool	Function	Restriction
`read_file`	Read files	Only files within workspace
`write_file`	Write files	Only files within workspace
`list_dir`	List directories	Only directories within workspace
`edit_file`	Edit files	Only files within workspace
`append_file`	Append to files	Only files within workspace
`exec`	Execute commands	Command paths must be within workspace

Additional Exec Protection

Even with restrict_to_workspace: false, the exec tool blocks these dangerous commands:

rm -rf, del /f, rmdir /s — Bulk deletion
format, mkfs, diskpart — Disk formatting
dd if= — Disk imaging
Writing to /dev/sd[a-z] — Direct disk writes
shutdown, reboot, poweroff — System shutdown
Fork bomb :(){ :|:& };:

Error Examples

[ERROR] tool: Tool execution failed
{tool=exec, error=Command blocked by safety guard (path outside working dir)}

[ERROR] tool: Tool execution failed
{tool=exec, error=Command blocked by safety guard (dangerous pattern detected)}

Disabling Restrictions (Security Risk)

If you need the agent to access paths outside the workspace:

Method 1: Config file

{
  "agents": {
    "defaults": {
      "restrict_to_workspace": false
    }
  }
}

Method 2: Environment variable

export PICOCLAW_AGENTS_DEFAULTS_RESTRICT_TO_WORKSPACE=false

⚠️ Warning: Disabling this restriction allows the agent to access any path on your system. Use with caution in controlled environments only.

Security Boundary Consistency

The restrict_to_workspace setting applies consistently across all execution paths:

Execution Path	Security Boundary
Main Agent	`restrict_to_workspace` ✅
Subagent / Spawn	Inherits same restriction ✅
Heartbeat tasks	Inherits same restriction ✅

All paths share the same workspace restriction — there's no way to bypass the security boundary through subagents or scheduled tasks.

Heartbeat (Periodic Tasks)

PicoClaw can perform periodic tasks automatically. Create a HEARTBEAT.md file in your workspace:

# Periodic Tasks

- Check my email for important messages
- Review my calendar for upcoming events
- Check the weather forecast

The agent will read this file every 30 minutes (configurable) and execute any tasks using available tools.

Async Tasks with Spawn

For long-running tasks (web search, API calls), use the spawn tool to create a subagent:

# Periodic Tasks

## Quick Tasks (respond directly)
- Report current time

## Long Tasks (use spawn for async)
- Search the web for AI news and summarize
- Check email and report important messages

Key behaviors:

Feature	Description
spawn	Creates async subagent, doesn't block heartbeat
Independent context	Subagent has its own context, no session history
message tool	Subagent communicates with user directly via message tool
Non-blocking	After spawning, heartbeat continues to next task

How Subagent Communication Works

Heartbeat triggers
    ↓
Agent reads HEARTBEAT.md
    ↓
For long task: spawn subagent
    ↓                           ↓
Continue to next task      Subagent works independently
    ↓                           ↓
All tasks done            Subagent uses "message" tool
    ↓                           ↓
Respond HEARTBEAT_OK      User receives result directly

The subagent has access to tools (message, web_search, etc.) and can communicate with the user independently without going through the main agent.

Configuration:

{
  "heartbeat": {
    "enabled": true,
    "interval": 30
  }
}

Option	Default	Description
`enabled`	`true`	Enable/disable heartbeat
`interval`	`30`	Check interval in minutes (min: 5)

Environment variables:

PICOCLAW_HEARTBEAT_ENABLED=false to disable
PICOCLAW_HEARTBEAT_INTERVAL=60 to change interval

Providers

Note

Groq provides free voice transcription via Whisper. If configured, Telegram voice messages will be automatically transcribed.

Provider	Purpose	Get API Key
`gemini`	LLM (Gemini direct)	aistudio.google.com
`zhipu`	LLM (Zhipu direct)	bigmodel.cn
`openrouter(To be tested)`	LLM (recommended, access to all models)	openrouter.ai
`anthropic(To be tested)`	LLM (Claude direct)	console.anthropic.com
`openai(To be tested)`	LLM (GPT direct)	platform.openai.com
`deepseek(To be tested)`	LLM (DeepSeek direct)	platform.deepseek.com
`groq`	LLM + Voice transcription (Whisper)	console.groq.com

Zhipu

1. Get API key and base URL

Get API key

2. Configure

{
  "agents": {
    "defaults": {
      "workspace": "~/.picoclaw/workspace",
      "model": "glm-4.7",
      "max_tokens": 8192,
      "temperature": 0.7,
      "max_tool_iterations": 20
    }
  },
  "providers": {
    "zhipu": {
      "api_key": "Your API Key",
      "api_base": "https://open.bigmodel.cn/api/paas/v4"
    }
  }
}

3. Run

picoclaw agent -m "Hello"

Full config example

{
  "agents": {
    "defaults": {
      "model": "anthropic/claude-opus-4-5"
    }
  },
  "providers": {
    "openrouter": {
      "api_key": "sk-or-v1-xxx"
    },
    "groq": {
      "api_key": "gsk_xxx"
    }
  },
  "channels": {
    "telegram": {
      "enabled": true,
      "token": "123456:ABC...",
      "allow_from": ["123456789"]
    },
    "discord": {
      "enabled": true,
      "token": "",
      "allow_from": [""]
    },
    "whatsapp": {
      "enabled": false
    },
    "feishu": {
      "enabled": false,
      "app_id": "cli_xxx",
      "app_secret": "xxx",
      "encrypt_key": "",
      "verification_token": "",
      "allow_from": []
    },
    "qq": {
      "enabled": false,
      "app_id": "",
      "app_secret": "",
      "allow_from": []
    }
  },
  "tools": {
    "web": {
      "brave": {
        "enabled": false,
        "api_key": "BSA...",
        "max_results": 5
      },
      "duckduckgo": {
        "enabled": true,
        "max_results": 5
      }
    }
  },
  "heartbeat": {
    "enabled": true,
    "interval": 30
  }
}

CLI Reference

Command	Description
`picoclaw onboard`	Initialize config & workspace
`picoclaw agent -m "..."`	Chat with the agent
`picoclaw agent`	Interactive chat mode
`picoclaw gateway`	Start the gateway
`picoclaw status`	Show status
`picoclaw cron list`	List all scheduled jobs
`picoclaw cron add ...`	Add a scheduled job

Scheduled Tasks / Reminders

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

Jobs are stored in ~/.picoclaw/workspace/cron/ and processed automatically.

🤝 Contribute & Roadmap

PRs welcome! The codebase is intentionally small and readable. 🤗

Roadmap coming soon...

Developer group building, Entry Requirement: At least 1 Merged PR.

User Groups:

discord: https://discord.gg/V4sAZ9XWpN

🐛 Troubleshooting

Web search says "API 配置问题"

This is normal if you haven't configured a search API key yet. PicoClaw will provide helpful links for manual searching.

To enable web search:

Option 1 (Recommended): Get a free API key at https://brave.com/search/api (2000 free queries/month) for the best results.
Option 2 (No Credit Card): If you don't have a key, we automatically fall back to DuckDuckGo (no key required).

Add the key to ~/.picoclaw/config.json if using Brave:

{
  "tools": {
    "web": {
      "brave": {
        "enabled": false,
        "api_key": "YOUR_BRAVE_API_KEY",
        "max_results": 5
      },
      "duckduckgo": {
        "enabled": true,
        "max_results": 5
      }
    }
  }
}

Getting content filtering errors

Some providers (like Zhipu) have content filtering. Try rephrasing your query or use a different model.

Telegram bot says "Conflict: terminated by other getUpdates"

This happens when another instance of the bot is running. Make sure only one picoclaw gateway is running at a time.

📝 API Key Comparison

Service	Free Tier	Use Case
OpenRouter	200K tokens/month	Multiple models (Claude, GPT-4, etc.)
Zhipu	200K tokens/month	Best for Chinese users
Brave Search	2000 queries/month	Web search functionality
Groq	Free tier available	Fast inference (Llama, Mixtral)

Name		Name	Last commit message	Last commit date
Latest commit History 250 Commits
.github		.github
assets		assets
cmd/picoclaw		cmd/picoclaw
config		config
doc		doc
pkg		pkg
workspace		workspace
.dockerignore		.dockerignore
.env.example		.env.example
.gitignore		.gitignore
.goreleaser.yaml		.goreleaser.yaml
Dockerfile		Dockerfile
Dockerfile.goreleaser		Dockerfile.goreleaser
LICENSE		LICENSE
Makefile		Makefile
README.ja.md		README.ja.md
README.md		README.md
README.zh.md		README.zh.md
docker-compose.yml		docker-compose.yml
go.mod		go.mod
go.sum		go.sum

License

sipeed/picoclaw

Folders and files

Latest commit

History

Repository files navigation

PicoClaw: Ultra-Efficient AI Assistant in Go

$10 Hardware · 10MB RAM · 1s Boot · 皮皮虾，我们走！

📢 News

✨ Features

🦾 Demonstration

🛠️ Standard Assistant Workflows

🐜 Innovative Low-Footprint Deploy

📦 Install

Install with precompiled binary

Install from source (latest features, recommended for development)

🐳 Docker Compose

Agent Mode (One-shot)

Rebuild

🚀 Quick Start

💬 Chat Apps

Join the Agent Social Network

⚙️ Configuration

Workspace Layout

🔒 Security Sandbox

Default Configuration

Protected Tools

Additional Exec Protection

Error Examples

Disabling Restrictions (Security Risk)

Security Boundary Consistency

Heartbeat (Periodic Tasks)

Async Tasks with Spawn

How Subagent Communication Works

Providers

CLI Reference

Scheduled Tasks / Reminders

🤝 Contribute & Roadmap

🐛 Troubleshooting

Web search says "API 配置问题"

Getting content filtering errors

Telegram bot says "Conflict: terminated by other getUpdates"

📝 API Key Comparison

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