🦞 OpenClaw Bootcamp
DAY 11 / 16
🌐
OpenClaw Bootcamp · Day 11

Integrations:
Connect Your Agent to the World

Your agent has channels, personality, memory, rules, and skills. Now it needs deeper integrations — Google Workspace, web search backends, browser automation, webhooks, and custom integration chains.

Deeper Integrations Webhooks & Cron Browser Automation
🦞 OpenClaw Bootcamp
DAY 11 / 16
Where We Are & Where We’re Going

Day 11 Goals

Day 10 Checkpoint
  • Understood the difference between tools and skills
  • Installed a Skill from ClawHub and built a custom Skill
  • Learned Skill security risks and the audit checklist
01
Map the integration landscape — channels, webhooks, cron, and automation triggers
02
Connect productivity tools — Google Workspace, web search, and browser automation
03
Build custom integrations and understand the enterprise integration chain
🦞 OpenClaw Bootcamp
DAY 11 / 16
One Gateway, Many Surfaces

The Integration Landscape

💬

Messaging Channels

WhatsApp, Telegram, Discord, Slack, iMessage, and more — all through one unified gateway.

🔌

Webhooks & API

Event-driven triggers from any external service. GitHub push, Stripe payment, form submission — any HTTP POST can wake your agent and pass it data.

Cron & Heartbeat

Time-based automation. Cron for exact schedules, heartbeat for periodic check-ins. Your agent works on a clock, not just on demand.

WhatsApp Telegram Discord Slack Signal iMessage Teams Matrix IRC Google Chat LINE
The Key Insight

Your agent’s logic is written once. The integration layer handles delivery. One brain, many mouths — the same agent can respond on WhatsApp, triage emails, and post to Slack without any per-channel customization.

🦞 OpenClaw Bootcamp
DAY 11 / 16
Three Automation Triggers

Webhook & Cron Architecture

Webhooks — Event-Driven
hooks.enabled: true hooks.token: "secret-key" hooks.path: "/webhook"

External events trigger your agent via HTTP POST. GitHub pushes, Stripe payments, form submissions — anything that can send a webhook.

Cron — Exact Time
cron.enabled: true cron.maxConcurrentRuns: 3 cron.sessionRetention: 7

Schedule tasks at precise times. Daily reports at 8am, weekly summaries on Friday, monthly audits on the 1st. Standard cron syntax.

Heartbeat — Periodic
heartbeat.every: "4h" heartbeat.target: "owner" heartbeat.directPolicy: "always"

Periodic check-ins defined in HEARTBEAT.md. Your agent wakes itself on interval, runs its instructions, reports back.

When to Use Which

Heartbeat for recurring agent-initiated work (briefings, monitoring). Cron for exact-time scheduling (reports, backups). Webhook for external event reactions (deploy notifications, payment alerts).

🦞 OpenClaw Bootcamp
DAY 11 / 16
Productivity Integration

Google Workspace via gog Skill

📧

Gmail

Email triage, drafting, sending, and inbox management. Your agent reads, categorizes, and responds to email on your behalf.

📅

Calendar

Schedule management, event creation, conflict detection, and meeting prep. Query availability, book time, send invites.

📄

Drive

Document creation, file search, and content extraction. Your agent can create docs, find files, and pull data from your Drive.

Critical Rule

Always use a dedicated Gmail account for your agent. Never connect your personal Gmail. The agent gets full read/write access — this is a security boundary you do not want to blur.

OAuth Flow

The gog skill handles OAuth authorization automatically. On first use, your agent walks you through granting access. Tokens are stored securely and refreshed as needed. No manual API key management required.

Installation

Install via openclaw skills install gog or tell your agent “Install the gog skill for Google Workspace.” The agent handles the rest.

🦞 OpenClaw Bootcamp
DAY 11 / 16
Give Your Agent the Internet

Web Search Backends

SearXNG — Recommended

Self-hosted, zero API costs, no rate limits. Aggregates results from multiple search engines. Full control over your search infrastructure.

Install by telling your agent “Install SearXNG” or configure manually in openclaw.json.

Brave Search API — Simple Alternative

Simpler setup — just an API key. But comes with usage limits and costs per query. Good for getting started fast before migrating to SearXNG.

Configuration

Set your search backend in openclaw.json or simply tell your agent which search provider to use. The agent configures it for you.

All Available Backends
  • SearXNG — Self-hosted, zero cost, no limits
  • Brave Search — API key, usage limits
  • DuckDuckGo — Free, no API key
  • Exa — Neural search for research
  • Tavily — AI-optimized search
  • Firecrawl — Web scraping + search
  • Perplexity, Gemini, Grok, Kimi, MiniMax, Ollama
🦞 OpenClaw Bootcamp
DAY 11 / 16
Playwright-Based

Browser Automation

What It Does

Your agent gets a full browser. It can navigate to URLs, fill forms, click buttons, take screenshots, extract data from rendered pages, and interact with JavaScript-heavy web apps that simple HTTP requests can’t handle.

Setup

Install Chromium via Playwright. The agent uses a dedicated browser profile — never your personal browser profile. This isolates cookies, sessions, and browsing history completely.

SSRF Protection

Browser automation blocks access to private networks by default — no browsing to localhost, 127.0.0.1, or internal IPs. This prevents Server-Side Request Forgery attacks where a prompt injection could make your agent probe your local network.

hostnameAllowlist

Need to access an internal service? Add specific hostnames to the allowlist as exceptions. This gives you controlled access without disabling SSRF protection entirely.

Use Cases
  • Scraping dynamic web pages
  • Filling forms and submitting data
  • Taking visual screenshots for reporting
  • Testing web applications
🦞 OpenClaw Bootcamp
DAY 11 / 16
From Simple to Enterprise

Building Custom Integrations

Three Ways to Build
🛠

1. Skill from Scratch

Write a SKILL.md with instructions, define parameters, build the handler. Full control over every detail of the integration.

🔄

2. “Turn That Into a Skill”

Do something manually with your agent, then say “Turn what you just did into a skill.” The agent packages the workflow into a reusable Skill automatically.

🤝

3. Walk It Through

Guide the agent step by step through the integration process. Teach it the API, the auth flow, the data format — it learns and codifies the workflow.

The 10-Link Enterprise Chain
  • 01Input — Receive data from any channel or trigger
  • 02Context — Load memory, preferences, and history
  • 03Security — Validate permissions and sanitize input
  • 04Research — Search web, query APIs, gather data
  • 05Extraction — Parse and structure raw data
  • 06Reasoning — Analyze, decide, and plan action
  • 07Production — Generate output (text, files, API calls)
  • 08Logic Host — Execute business rules and workflows
  • 09Verification — Validate output before delivery
  • 10Analytics — Log, measure, and report on results
🦞 OpenClaw Bootcamp
DAY 11 / 16
Before Day 12

Day 11 Homework

  • 01

    Set Up Web Search

    Install SearXNG (tell your agent “Install SearXNG”) or configure Brave Search API with your key. Test it by asking your agent a question about current events and verifying it searches the web to answer.

  • 02

    Connect One Productivity Tool

    Install the gog skill and connect Gmail or Calendar using a dedicated account. Test with a simple task: “Check my calendar for tomorrow” or “Summarize my unread emails.”

  • 03

    Create a Webhook or Cron Automation

    Set up a cron job that runs a daily summary, or configure a webhook endpoint that your agent responds to. Test the trigger and verify the agent executes correctly.

  • 04

    Test Browser Automation

    Install Chromium via Playwright and ask your agent to browse a website, take a screenshot, or extract data from a page. Verify SSRF blocking is active by confirming it refuses to visit localhost.

🦞 OpenClaw Bootcamp
DAY 11 / 16
🦞
Coming Up

Day 12: Docker
Containerize Your Agent for Production

Your agent is connected to the world. Now it needs a proper home. On Day 12 we containerize everything with Docker — isolated environments, reproducible deployments, and the foundation for running your agent in production safely and reliably.

Dockerfiles Compose Production Deploy