DEV Community

Clamper ai
Clamper ai

Posted on • Originally published at clamper.tech

Building Your First OpenClaw Skill in 15 Minutes

#ai #opensource #tutorial #automation

OpenClaw skills are the building blocks that turn a conversational AI into an autonomous agent. Each skill teaches your agent something new.

This guide walks you through creating the skill structure, writing SKILL.md, adding scripts, testing locally, and publishing to ClawHub.

What Is an OpenClaw Skill?

A directory with one required file: SKILL.md. It tells the agent what the skill does and how to use it.

my-skill/
├── SKILL.md
├── scripts/
│   └── run.sh
└── references/
    └── api-docs.md
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

No package.json, no build step.

Step 1: Choose What Your Skill Does

Pick something you already do manually. We'll build a URL shortener skill using the CleanURI API — free, no auth needed.

Step 2: Create the Directory 

mkdir -p ~/.openclaw/workspace/skills/url-shortener/scripts
cd ~/.openclaw/workspace/skills/url-shortener
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Step 3: Write the SKILL.md 

# URL Shortener

Shorten long URLs using the CleanURI API. Free, no API key required.

## When to Use
- User asks to shorten a URL
- Generating shareable links for social media posts

## How to Use

bash ~/.openclaw/workspace/skills/url-shortener/scripts/shorten.sh URL

## Notes
- No authentication required
- Rate limited to ~10 requests per minute
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Key points: clear description, trigger conditions, exact commands, error handling notes, and constraints.

Step 4: Write the Script 

#!/usr/bin/env bash
set -euo pipefail

URL="${1:?Usage: shorten.sh <url>}"

RESPONSE=$(curl -s -X POST "https://cleanuri.com/api/v1/shorten" \
  -d "url=$URL" --max-time 10)

SHORT=$(echo "$RESPONSE" | jq -r '.result_url // empty')

if [ -z "$SHORT" ]; then
  ERROR=$(echo "$RESPONSE" | jq -r '.error // "Unknown error"')
  echo "Error: $ERROR" >&2
  exit 1
fi

echo "$SHORT"
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode 
chmod +x scripts/shorten.sh
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Step 5: Test It 

bash scripts/shorten.sh "https://github.com/anthropics/anthropic-cookbook"
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Then test with your agent — ask it to shorten a URL and see if it picks up the skill.

Step 6: Publish to ClawHub 

clawhub publish ~/.openclaw/workspace/skills/url-shortener
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Anyone can install it:

clawhub install your-username/url-shortener
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Patterns for Better Skills

Be specific about triggers. Vague descriptions make it hard for the agent to activate your skill.

Fail loudly. The agent can recover from clear error messages, not silent failures.

Keep scripts idempotent. Same input, same output. Agents retry sometimes.

Document environment requirements. If your skill needs jq or ffmpeg, say so.

Use the references directory. Put complex API docs there instead of bloating SKILL.md.

Going Further with Clamper

Clamper helps manage skills at scale — tracking usage, monitoring token costs, syncing across machines, and providing a dashboard for performance visibility.

What to Build Next

  • Notification skill (Pushover / ntfy.sh)
  • Screenshot skill (capture web pages)
  • Database query skill (SQLite / PostgreSQL)
  • Deployment skill (one-command deploys)
  • File converter skill (markdown to PDF, images to WebP)

Every skill you publish makes the OpenClaw ecosystem stronger. Get started on ClawHub.

Top comments (0)