Building Your First OpenClaw Agent

tutorialbeginner8 min readVerified Mar 8, 2026

Build your first real OpenClaw workflow: a morning briefing agent that summarizes email, calendar, and news.

openclawtutorialworkflowmorning-briefingbeginner

Building Your First OpenClaw Agent

You have OpenClaw installed, a messaging platform connected, and an LLM configured. Now it is time to build something real: a morning briefing agent that summarizes your email, calendar, and top news every day.

What You Will Build#

Every morning at 7 AM, your agent will:

  1. Check your email inbox and summarize unread messages by priority
  2. Pull today's calendar events and flag conflicts
  3. Scan your RSS feeds or news sources for relevant headlines
  4. Send you a formatted briefing via Telegram (or your preferred channel)

This is one of the most popular OpenClaw workflows -- builders report saving 15-30 minutes every morning.

Step 1: Install Required Skills#

You need skills for email, calendar, and web browsing:

# Email access
openclaw skill install gmail-reader
# or: openclaw skill install outlook-reader

# Calendar access
openclaw skill install google-calendar
# or: openclaw skill install ical-reader

# Web browsing for news
openclaw skill install web-browser

# Cron scheduling
openclaw skill install cron-scheduler
Warning

Before installing any skill, check its ClawHub page for the VirusTotal report. After the ClawHavoc campaign, 36% of ClawHub skills contained security flaws. Only install skills with verified publishers or strong community reputation. See our Supply Chain Safety guide for vetting procedures.

## Step 2: Configure Email Access

For Gmail, you will need an App Password (not your regular password):

  1. Go to myaccount.google.com/apppasswords
  2. Generate an app password for "OpenClaw"
  3. Configure it:
openclaw config set gmail.email "your@gmail.com"
openclaw config set gmail.appPassword "xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx"

Step 3: Create the Agent Prompt#

OpenClaw agents are configured through prompt files. Create a morning briefing prompt at ~/.openclaw/agents/morning-briefing/AGENT.md:

# Morning Briefing Agent

You are a personal briefing assistant. Every morning, compile a concise briefing with:

## Email Summary
- Check unread emails from the last 12 hours
- Group by priority: Urgent, Action, FYI
- For each email: sender, subject, one-line summary
- Skip newsletters and marketing emails

## Calendar
- List today's events with times and locations
- Flag any conflicts or back-to-back meetings
- Note any preparation needed

## News
- Check RSS feeds for top 5 relevant headlines
- Focus on AI, technology, and industry news
- One sentence per headline with source link

## Format
Keep the entire briefing under 500 words. Use bullet points. Start with the most time-sensitive items.

Step 4: Schedule It#

Use the cron scheduler to run the briefing every morning:

# Schedule for 7 AM daily
openclaw cron add "morning-brief" \
  --schedule "0 7 * * *" \
  --agent "morning-briefing" \
  --message "Generate my morning briefing" \
  --channel "telegram"

Step 5: Test It Manually#

Before waiting for the cron job, test it:

openclaw run --agent morning-briefing "Generate my morning briefing"

Or just message your bot on Telegram: "Generate my morning briefing"

Example Output#

Here is what a typical morning briefing looks like:

Good morning! Here is your briefing for Wednesday, March 8:

URGENT
- Client X (john@client.com): Contract review needed by EOD
- AWS: Billing alert - usage spike on us-east-1

ACTION THIS WEEK
- Design team: Feedback requested on new dashboard mockups
- Legal: NDA for Project Phoenix ready for signature

FYI
- HR: Company all-hands moved to Friday 3pm
- DevOps: Scheduled maintenance window Saturday 2-4am

CALENDAR
- 9:00 AM - Standup (Zoom)
- 11:00 AM - Client X contract review (prep: read attached redline)
- 2:00 PM - 1:1 with Sarah (no prep needed)
- Warning: No lunch break blocked between 11 AM and 2 PM

NEWS
- OpenAI releases GPT-5.2 with improved tool use (TechCrunch)
- EU AI Act enforcement begins for high-risk systems (Reuters)
- Ollama hits 1M daily active users (Hacker News)

Customization Ideas#

Once the basic briefing works, try extending it:

  • Weather: Add local weather and commute conditions
  • Metrics: Pull key business metrics from your dashboards
  • Social: Summarize important mentions on Twitter/LinkedIn
  • Tasks: Pull your top tasks from Todoist, Linear, or Notion

Troubleshooting#

Agent not responding?

openclaw doctor
openclaw logs --tail 50

Email access failing?

  • Verify your app password is correct
  • Check that IMAP is enabled in Gmail settings
  • Ensure the gmail-reader skill is installed: openclaw skill list

Cron not firing?

openclaw cron list
openclaw cron logs morning-brief

Next Steps#

Now that you have a working agent, explore more advanced topics:

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