Run a personal assistant over WhatsApp

The author runs OpenClaw on a cheap VPS, messaging it over WhatsApp to manage his calendar, browse the web, answer voice notes, and log habits to a Git-tracked file.

What They Did: OpenClaw runs in Docker on a $5/month VPS, with headless Chromium for browsing and the gateway reachable only through an SSH tunnel. The author messages it on WhatsApp. It manages Google Calendar and Gmail through the gog CLI, logs habits to markdown files, and turns voice notes into filed action items using Gemini. It commits notes to a private GitHub repo. Family members are routed to a separate agent.
How It Went: He dropped paid Notion, Todoist and a habit tracker, and the agent also made phone calls and reservations from its own $5 eSIM number. The source gives no accuracy or reliability measurements.
Worth Knowing: OpenClaw rewrites its config on startup and strips the WhatsApp allowlist, so he added a golden-config restore and a watchdog. Chromium in Docker also needs 2GB of shared memory.

Try it yourself with OpenClaw

Set up a personal assistant I can message over [WhatsApp/Telegram] that can check and edit my calendar at [calendar service], browse the web, transcribe voice notes, and log daily habits ([list habits]) to a text file in a Git repo at [path]. Walk me through setup on my [VPS/computer], then test it by having me send one message of each type. Setup is done when each of those tests works; ask before it sends any message to anyone besides me or changes any calendar events.

Read the original ↗