← Help & How-To Guides

Quick Start Guide

You have your ClawBox up and running. Here is how to start getting value from it straight away.

The OpenClaw interface

When you open your ClawBox, you will see a chat interface similar to ChatGPT or other AI assistants. This is the OpenClaw web UI. The key areas are:

• Chat area — the main conversation view where you type messages and see responses
• Model selector — choose which AI model to use for the current conversation
• Conversation list — your past conversations, shown in the sidebar
• Agent panel — configuration for how the AI behaves, accessible from the settings area

Your first conversation

Just type a message and press Enter. You can talk to your AI assistant in natural language, exactly as you would with a colleague. Some good first things to try:

• "Summarise the key points of this article" — paste in some text and ask for a summary
• "Draft a professional email to a client about..." — get help with writing
• "What are the pros and cons of..." — use it for analysis and decision-making
• "Search the web for the latest news on..." — it can fetch current information

Do not worry about getting the wording perfect. The AI is good at understanding intent, and you can always clarify or rephrase if the first response is not quite right.

Tools and capabilities

Your ClawBox has tool execution enabled, which means the AI can do more than just generate text. It can:

• Search the web — find current information, look up facts, check prices
• Run code — execute Python scripts, shell commands, and other programs
• Process files — read, transform, and create documents
• Multi-step tasks — break down complex requests into steps and execute them in sequence

When the AI wants to use a tool, it will typically tell you what it is about to do. In most cases it will proceed automatically, but for sensitive operations it may ask for confirmation first.

Choosing a model

If you have connected multiple AI providers, you can switch between models using the model selector at the top of the chat. Different models have different strengths:

• GPT (OpenAI) — excellent all-rounder, strong at coding and creative writing
• Claude (Anthropic) — thoughtful and thorough, especially good with long documents
• Gemini (Google) — fast and capable, good general knowledge

You can switch models between conversations or even mid-conversation. Each model will pick up the conversation context.

Tips for getting the best results

• Be specific. "Write a 200-word product description for a hand-made ceramic mug" works better than "write something about mugs".
• Give context. Tell the AI who the audience is, what tone you want, or what format you need.
• Iterate. If the first response is not quite right, say what needs changing. "Make it more formal" or "shorter" or "add a section about pricing".
• Use conversations for topics. Start a new conversation for each distinct task or project. This keeps the context clean and makes it easier to find things later.
• Ask it to explain. If you receive a response you do not fully understand, ask the AI to explain its reasoning or break it down further.

Your workspace

Your ClawBox has a persistent workspace directory. Files created during conversations are stored here and survive between sessions. If you ask the AI to create a file, save a script, or download something, it will be kept in your workspace.

This workspace is preserved across upgrades, so you will not lose your files when your ClawBox is updated to a newer version of OpenClaw.