Setting Up OpenClaw: Skills, Tailscale, GitHub Config Sync, and Copilot¶

A few months ago we onboarded a new environment “the fast way.” It worked… until it didn’t. No clear roll back, no consistent skills, and no shared way to answer the basic question: what’s running, where, and why?

This guide fixes that. It’s a clean Day‑1 setup that gets OpenClaw running securely, reproducibly, and in a way you can scale.

Principles (the why)¶

Secure access by default (no exposed ports)
Reproducible configuration (GitHub‑backed)
Productive workflows (skills + Copilot)

Architecture at a glance¶

OpenClaw system context OpenClaw container view

1) Install OpenClaw (quick path)¶

Use the official docs for your platform. If you want a guided setup with scripts, use the companion repo:

https://github.com/polarpoint-io/ai-capabilities

Ubuntu (reference setup)¶

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y git curl ca-certificates

Install OpenClaw via the official docs, then verify:

openclaw status
openclaw gateway status
openclaw gateway start

2) Bring up Tailscale (secure access)¶

Tailscale gives you private, encrypted access without opening ports publicly.

curl -fsSL https://tailscale.com/install.sh | sh
sudo tailscale up

Tip: tag the host and lock it down with ACLs.

3) Use the setup scripts (fast, repeatable)¶

The ai‑capabilities repo includes setup scripts for both Linux and macOS:

# Linux
./scripts/setup-linux.sh

# macOS
./scripts/setup-macos.sh

These scripts: - ensure Tailscale is installed and online - start the OpenClaw gateway

Snippet (Linux):

openclaw gateway start
openclaw gateway status

4) Enable your first skills¶

Installed skills right now: - self-improving-agent - captures learnings from failures and feedback - ddg-web-search - web search without an API key - github - GitHub ops via gh - kubernetes - cluster operations and manifests

List skills:

clawhub list

Install a new skill:

clawhub install <skill-name>

5) Sync config with GitHub¶

Store non‑secret config in GitHub for reproducibility.

Suggested layout:

openclaw-config/
  README.md
  openclaw.json (sanitized)
  skills/
  notes/

Never commit secrets. Use env vars or a secret manager instead.

6) Pair with GitHub Copilot¶

Copilot helps with: - docs/blog drafts - refactors and cleanup - repetitive config work

Workflow: 1) OpenClaw automates 2) Copilot speeds edits 3) You review + ship

7) Validate the setup¶

Run these checks:

openclaw status
tailscale status
clawhub list

Quick checklist¶

✅ OpenClaw running
✅ Tailscale connected
✅ Skills installed
✅ Config synced (sanitized)
✅ Copilot ready

Common pitfalls (and fixes)¶

Gateway not running → openclaw gateway start
Tailscale offline → tailscale up
Skills missing → clawhub list, reinstall
Secrets in Git → move to env vars/secret manager
No roll back → add a roll back note to openclaw-config/README.md

Next steps¶

Explore runnable examples and scripts in the companion repo: https://github.com/polarpoint-io/ai-capabilities