The Fastest Way to Set Up OpenClaw (Step by Step)

Hey, I'm Dan, and in this tutorial, I'll show you the fastest way to set up Open Claw. I'll go step-by-step so that you don't get stuck, and by the end of this video, you'll have your own AI assistant running 24/7. You'll be able to message it from anywhere, and you can even give it skills. To do this in the fastest way possible, we'll use Hostinger's Open Claw plan. There's little setup, everything is ready out of the box, and you can get straight to using Open Claw. So, without wasting any time, step one is to sign up for a Hostinger Open Claw plan. To make sure to get the best deal, sign up using our exclusive partner link in the description down below. That will get you an additional 10% off any Hostinger plan, and after clicking that link, you'll join me here on the Open Claw page. Click Get Started to see your plan options. You'll see two plans, Managed Open Claw and Open Claw on VPS. For the fastest setup, we're going with Managed Open Claw. It's ready out of the box with no technical setup, so you can skip straight to using your assistant. Open Claw on VPS is the more hands-on option if you want full control over the server, but if speed is what you're after, Managed is the fastest way to get going. So, go ahead and click Choose Plan under Managed Open Claw. On the next page, you'll pick your billing period. It defaults to 24 months, and that gives you the biggest savings, so you can keep it there. If you'd rather pay less up front, the 12-month plan still saves you a good amount. Just below that, you'll see Ready to Use AI. If you have no interest in these credits, don't worry. You don't have to add these. If you already know that you want to use Open AI or Anthropic, I'll show you how to set that up in the next section. But, if you're just getting started, the Nexos AI credits are the fastest way to get your assistant running. You don't need to create any extra accounts or generate any API keys, and you can switch between AI models like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini whenever you want, all from one place. I'll add 20 credits to start and I'll show you just how fast it is to get going on the configuration screen in a minute. Below that, you'll see options for instant web search and agentic mail. I'll add instant web search because there's really no downside to grabbing 1,000 free Oxylab credits, but if you're not interested, you can skip this. Same goes for agentic mail. When you're ready, scroll back up, confirm that your discount is applied in the order summary, and click continue. On the next page, go ahead and register with Hostinger using either Google, GitHub, or your email address. Then click register. Then enter your billing address and click continue. After that, enter your payment information and click submit payment. Once your payment goes through, you'll automatically be shown to the next screen in a few seconds. The next step is to connect Open Claw to an AI model so it has a brain to think with. Just a heads-up before we start. Hostinger is always improving this interface and this process, so yours might look slightly different than mine, but you should still be able to follow along. You'll land on the choose an AI provider screen. From here, you've got a few options. If you already have an API key from OpenAI, Anthropic, XAI, or Gemini, go ahead and choose your provider and then paste your key in here. If you don't have a key yet or an account with Anthropic, for example, you can go to that provider's console, create one, and then come back and paste it here. If you added the Nexus AI credits during checkout like me, click here and we'll need to enter our Nexus API key here as well. It may already be filled in for you, but if not, don't worry. Let me show you how to grab it. Come up to the top and right-click [clears throat] on the Hostinger logo and then open the link in the new tab. That will open our Hpanel. From here, click Open Claw on the left-hand side and you'll see your credits here at the top. Then, click key to copy the key. Return to your first tab, paste the key in this field, and then select an AI model. I'll choose Sonnet for the moment. Then, click next. Open Claw will take a minute to set up. There's a small mini-game here you can play while you wait. If you have a high score you're proud of, comment down below. And once it's done setting up, you'll be asked to connect Open Claw to a messaging app. This is how you chat with your assistant from your phone. Here you can connect Telegram or WhatsApp, and I'll go ahead and click Telegram to show you the setup instructions. If you're not ready to set this up just yet, don't worry. I'll show you exactly how to do it from the Open Claw dashboard or from your hosting or panel in just a minute. Click change messaging app, and then next. And you're all set. Here's your Open Claw access key. Go ahead and copy that and save it somewhere safe like a password. From here, you can click this button to open Open Claw in a new tab. But, I'd recommend going to the Hostinger instead by clicking this link or by clicking the Hostinger logo like we've done before. That way, I can show you how we will normally access Open Claw next time you log in to your Hostinger account. I'll click this, and I'll close my extra tab. That link should bring you directly to the Open Claw dashboard. But again, if you ever log in and land at home, Open Claw will always be in the left-hand panel. From this screen, just click manage, and you're back to the same spot. This is where you'll find your Open Claw instance along with your integrations on the left. We'll come back to these shortly. For now, go back to dashboard, and then click to open Open Claw in a new tab. And it's that quick. No VPS to deploy, no template to install, no gateway token to paste in. This is why the managed plan is the fastest way to get started. Now that you're in the Open Claw dashboard, this is where you'll chat with your assistant and manage everything from one place. At the top of the chat, you'll see your AI models. [clears throat] And if you added the Nexus AI credits during checkout, you can swap between all the different provider models. I'll stick on Sonnet 4-6. The first thing we want to do is give our assistant an identity. Open Claw uses a file called soul.md to give your assistant a persistent identity. Unlike GPT, your Clawd, this memory lives on your server. So, your assistant actually remembers who you are and how you like to work every time you talk to it. To set it up, I'll send a message to trigger this process. Like, "Hey, let's set up your soul.md file." And then I'll send it. Your assistant will walk you through a few questions. What to call it, what's the vibe, what you'll be using it for, and some more details. Go ahead and answer the questions however you'd like. I'll go through mine now. Now that your assistant has an identity, the next step is to connect a messenger so that you can chat with it from anywhere. Open Claw supports a few different channels that we saw, including Telegram. And for this video, I'm going to go with that since it's fastest to connect. There are two ways to set this up. You can do it right here in the Open Claw chat by typing something like, "Can you help me connect to Telegram?" And your assistant will walk you through the steps. Your message might not be exactly the same as mine, but if you follow along, you'll get set up. But this is also something you can now do directly from your HPanel if you didn't do it in that onboarding sequence. And I think that's a bit easier. So, let me show you how to do that. Return to your hosting or panel, and from the Open Claw dashboard, find integrations. Next to Telegram, go ahead and click connect. You'll get a set of instructions to follow alongside a video explainer, and I'll help walk you through those now. The first step is to open Telegram and search for BotFather. With Telegram open, I'll search BotFather, and we're looking for this one here. Then click start. The next step is to type in new bot, or you can use the command by clicking right here. The name that I'll choose for my bot will be medics riff and then we need to choose a username that ends in bot. BotFather will then send you your bot token. This is what we need to copy and paste into Hostinger. So, I'll copy the selected text. I'll return to Hostinger and paste that bot token here. Then, click next. Then, we need to return to Telegram and search for our bot to open the chat. So, you can search for your bot or you can click this link right here. Then, click start. Your new bot will send your pairing code. Once it does, go back to Hostinger. Give the pairing process a moment and your pairing code should appear here automatically. Assuming they match, click approve and you'll get a success message here. Now that your assistant is connected to Telegram, the last thing I'll show you is how to add skills. Skills give your assistant the ability to actually do things like read your Gmail, check your calendar, or search the web. The easiest way to find skills is to ask your assistant directly. I'll type what skills can we add? And you'll see that your bot is typing. And there are a lot of skills, so it'll be helpful to narrow down for your assistant what you're actually working on. You can also browse the official directory at clawhub.ai and our bot even links that for us. I'll click this to open. Before installing anything, I'd recommend checking the VirusTotal report on the skills page. If I open a skill, you'll find that under the audit section. Click VirusTotal here and you'll get even more information. Security researchers have found many malicious skills on ClawHub and although a high download count is a good sign, it doesn't necessarily mean the skill is safe. To install one, just ask your assistant by name or paste the GitHub link of the skill into the chat and it will walk you through the setup. Once installed, the skills will usually require a bit of information from you to connect and then you'll be all set. And here's one last thing I want to show you that can come in handy. Every once in a while, Open Claw might get stuck or stop responding and the quickest fix is just to restart it. You can do that in the H panel. Return to Hostinger, make sure you're in the Open Claw dashboard and then find this restart button here. Go ahead and click it. It'll warn you that your AI assistants will stop working while restarting and then you can restart. It'll take a few moments and once it's back up, you're good to go. To resume chatting with your assistant, return to Telegram. It may take a few more moments for your bot to resume in chat, but you'll be all good to go in no time at all. If you've only been following along so far and you haven't signed up for your Hostinger Open Claw plan yet, remember to use the first link in the description. That link applies our exclusive discount and gives you an extra 10% off any Hostinger plan. Thanks for watching.