Skills & Extensions

OpenClaw skills are plugins that extend your AI agent with new capabilities-browser control, email, calendar, custom APIs, shell commands, and hundreds of integrations. The community ClawHub marketplace offers 3,000+ skills you can install with a single command. This hub covers how to browse, install, audit, and create your own skills.

📖 New to OpenClaw? Install OpenClaw first with our Quick Start Guide, then add at least one messaging channel (e.g. Telegram or Discord). After that, you can install skills to give your agent new powers.

1. What Are OpenClaw Skills?

Unlike a simple chatbot, OpenClaw is an autonomous agent that can do things: run tools, call APIs, manage files, and automate workflows. Skills (sometimes called extensions) are the pluggable modules that add those tools and actions. Each skill defines:

  • Tools - Actions the LLM can invoke (e.g. send email, search the web, run a script)
  • Configuration - Settings and credentials the skill needs (API keys, endpoints)
  • Metadata - Name, description, version, and permissions for the ClawHub marketplace

Skills run inside your OpenClaw instance and work with any supported LLM (Claude, GPT, Gemini, DeepSeek, or local models via Ollama). The gateway daemon loads them at startup and exposes their tools to the agent. For a technical overview of the platform, see What is OpenClaw? and Architecture Overview.

2. Skills Hub - Where to Go Next

Use the guides below depending on your goal:

ClawHub Marketplace Guide

Browse 3,000+ community-built skills, filter by category, and understand ratings and permissions. Learn how to discover the right skills for your use case and how the marketplace is organized.

Installing Skills

Install, list, update, and remove skills via the CLI. Step-by-step instructions for openclaw skills search, install, list, and update, plus configuration and troubleshooting.

Top 50 Essential Skills

Curated list of the most popular and useful OpenClaw skills-productivity, development, business, and automation. A great starting point if you're not sure which skills to install first.

Creating Custom Skills

Build your own skills in TypeScript or YAML, test them locally, and publish to ClawHub. Includes anatomy of a skill, development setup, and the 80% revenue share for creators.

Skills Security Audit

Audit skills before and after installation: credential leaks, malicious code, and supply-chain risks. Security research (e.g. Snyk) has found that a portion of ClawHub skills can leak credentials-learn how to stay safe.

3. Quick CLI Reference

Once OpenClaw is installed, you can manage skills from the command line:

# Search for skills by keyword
openclaw skills search [keyword]

# Install a skill (by name or package)
openclaw skills install [skill-name]

# List installed skills
openclaw skills list

# Update all skills to latest versions
openclaw skills update --all

For full details and options, see Installing Skills. For security scanning of installed skills, run openclaw security audit when available-documented in Skills Security (under Security) and our Skills Security Audit page.

4. Security First

Third-party skills run with access to your environment, credentials, and network. Security researchers (including Snyk) have reported that approximately 7.1% of analyzed ClawHub skills could leak credentials-for example via logging, error messages, or external calls. Malware and fake crypto tools have also been reported in the marketplace. Before installing any skill:

  • Prefer skills from known publishers or with visible source code (e.g. GitHub)
  • Pin skills to specific versions in your config to avoid surprise updates
  • Run openclaw security audit after installing or updating skills

Read our Skills Security Audit guide and the main Skills Security page (under Security) for audit steps, malicious-skill detection, and best practices. See also Security Best Practices for the full hardening guide.

5. Prerequisites

6. Related Resources

📚 Docs & Config

🎥 Learning

💬 Community

7. Next Steps

After exploring skills, consider:

  • Use case examples - See how others combine skills for productivity, business, and development
  • Monetization - Build and sell workflows or custom skills (e.g. ClawHub revenue share)
  • Security checklist - Post-install and ongoing hardening
  • Troubleshooting - Fix skill load failures, config errors, and dependency issues