IronClaw

Your secure personal AI assistant, always on your side

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Philosophy • Features • Installation • Configuration • Security • Architecture

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Philosophy

IronClaw is built on a simple principle: your AI assistant should work for you, not against you.

In a world where AI systems are increasingly opaque about data handling and aligned with corporate interests, IronClaw takes a different approach:

• Your data stays yours - All information is stored locally, encrypted, and never leaves your control
• Transparency by design - Open source, auditable, no hidden telemetry or data harvesting
• Self-expanding capabilities - Build new tools on the fly without waiting for vendor updates
• Defense in depth - Multiple security layers protect against prompt injection and data exfiltration

IronClaw is the AI assistant you can actually trust with your personal and professional life.

Features

Security First

• WASM Sandbox - Untrusted tools run in isolated WebAssembly containers with capability-based permissions
• Credential Protection - Secrets are never exposed to tools; injected at the host boundary with leak detection
• Prompt Injection Defense - Pattern detection, content sanitization, and policy enforcement
• Endpoint Allowlisting - HTTP requests only to explicitly approved hosts and paths

Always Available

• Multi-channel - REPL, HTTP webhooks, WASM channels (Telegram, Slack), and web gateway
• Docker Sandbox - Isolated container execution with per-job tokens and orchestrator/worker pattern
• Web Gateway - Browser UI with real-time SSE/WebSocket streaming
• Routines - Cron schedules, event triggers, webhook handlers for background automation
• Heartbeat System - Proactive background execution for monitoring and maintenance tasks
• Parallel Jobs - Handle multiple requests concurrently with isolated contexts
• Self-repair - Automatic detection and recovery of stuck operations

Self-Expanding

• Dynamic Tool Building - Describe what you need, and IronClaw builds it as a WASM tool
• MCP Protocol - Connect to Model Context Protocol servers for additional capabilities
• Plugin Architecture - Drop in new WASM tools and channels without restarting

Persistent Memory

• Hybrid Search - Full-text + vector search using Reciprocal Rank Fusion
• Workspace Filesystem - Flexible path-based storage for notes, logs, and context
• Identity Files - Maintain consistent personality and preferences across sessions

Installation

Prerequisites

• Rust 1.85+
• PostgreSQL 15+ with pgvector extension
• NEAR AI account (authentication handled via setup wizard)

Download or Build

Visit Releases page to see the latest updates.

Install via Windows Installer (Windows)

Download the Windows Installer and run it.

Install via powershell script (Windows)

irm https://github.com/nearai/ironclaw/releases/latest/download/ironclaw-installer.ps1 | iex

Install via shell script (macOS, Linux, Windows/WSL)

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -LsSf https://github.com/nearai/ironclaw/releases/latest/download/ironclaw-installer.sh | sh

Install via Homebrew (macOS/Linux)

brew install ironclaw

Install via Docker — recommended for Windows and hands-off auto-upgrades

Prerequisites: one of:

• Windows (native): Docker Desktop for Windows — uses WSL2 backend automatically
• Windows (WSL2 distro): install Docker Engine + Compose plugin inside your WSL2 distribution (Docker docs)
• macOS: Docker Desktop for Mac
• Linux: Docker Engine + Compose plugin

1. Clone the repository (provides docker-compose.yml and .env.example):

   git clone https://github.com/JZKK720/ironclaw.git
   cd ironclaw

2. Create your environment file:

   cp .env.example .env

   Open .env and set at minimum:

   # Generate with: openssl rand -hex 32
   GATEWAY_AUTH_TOKEN=<your-random-hex-token>
   SECRETS_MASTER_KEY=<your-random-hex-token>
   
   # Your LLM provider — e.g. Anthropic:
   LLM_BACKEND=anthropic
   ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-ant-...

3. Authenticate with GHCR (one-time, required for Watchtower auto-updates):

   # Create a Personal Access Token with read:packages scope at https://github.com/settings/tokens
   docker login ghcr.io -u <your-github-username> -p <your-PAT>

4. Start all services:

   docker compose up -d

   This starts three services:

   Service	Purpose	URL
   postgres	pgvector-enabled database	internal
   ironclaw	AI assistant	http://localhost:3231 (web UI) · http://localhost:8281 (gateway)
   watchtower	Hourly auto-upgrade	—

5. Tail the logs:

   docker compose logs -f ironclaw

Windows note: Windows Smart App Control blocks freshly compiled Rust binaries. Docker (Docker Desktop, or Docker Engine inside WSL2) is the recommended install path on Windows — no Rust toolchain needed.

Compile the source code (Cargo on Windows, Linux, macOS)

Install it with cargo, just make sure you have Rust installed on your computer.

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/nearai/ironclaw.git
cd ironclaw

# Build
cargo build --release

# Run tests
cargo test

For full release (after modifying channel sources), run ./scripts/build-all.sh to rebuild channels first.

Database Setup

# Create database
createdb ironclaw

# Enable pgvector
psql ironclaw -c "CREATE EXTENSION IF NOT EXISTS vector;"

Configuration

Run the setup wizard to configure IronClaw:

ironclaw onboard

The wizard handles database connection, NEAR AI authentication (via browser OAuth), and secrets encryption (using your system keychain). Settings are persisted in the connected database; bootstrap variables (e.g. DATABASE_URL, LLM_BACKEND) are written to ~/.ironclaw/.env so they are available before the database connects.

Alternative LLM Providers

IronClaw defaults to NEAR AI but supports many LLM providers out of the box. Built-in providers include Anthropic, OpenAI, GitHub Copilot, Google Gemini, MiniMax, Mistral, and Ollama (local). OpenAI-compatible services like OpenRouter (300+ models), Together AI, Fireworks AI, and self-hosted servers (vLLM, LiteLLM) are also supported.

Select your provider in the wizard, or set environment variables directly:

# Example: MiniMax (built-in, 204K context)
LLM_BACKEND=minimax
MINIMAX_API_KEY=...

# Example: OpenAI-compatible endpoint
LLM_BACKEND=openai_compatible
LLM_BASE_URL=https://openrouter.ai/api/v1
LLM_API_KEY=sk-or-...
LLM_MODEL=anthropic/claude-sonnet-4

See docs/capabilities/llm-providers.md for a full provider guide.

Security

IronClaw implements defense in depth to protect your data and prevent misuse.

WASM Sandbox

All untrusted tools run in isolated WebAssembly containers:

• Capability-based permissions - Explicit opt-in for HTTP, secrets, tool invocation
• Endpoint allowlisting - HTTP requests only to approved hosts/paths
• Credential injection - Secrets injected at host boundary, never exposed to WASM code
• Leak detection - Scans requests and responses for secret exfiltration attempts
• Rate limiting - Per-tool request limits to prevent abuse
• Resource limits - Memory, CPU, and execution time constraints

WASM ──► Allowlist ──► Leak Scan ──► Credential ──► Execute ──► Leak Scan ──► WASM
         Validator     (request)     Injector       Request     (response)

Prompt Injection Defense

External content passes through multiple security layers:

• Pattern-based detection of injection attempts
• Content sanitization and escaping
• Policy rules with severity levels (Block/Warn/Review/Sanitize)
• Tool output wrapping for safe LLM context injection

Data Protection

• All data stored locally in your PostgreSQL database
• Secrets encrypted with AES-256-GCM
• No telemetry, analytics, or data sharing
• Full audit log of all tool executions

Architecture

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                          Channels                              │
│  ┌──────┐  ┌──────┐   ┌─────────────┐  ┌─────────────┐         │
│  │ REPL │  │ HTTP │   │WASM Channels│  │ Web Gateway │         │
│  └──┬───┘  └──┬───┘   └──────┬──────┘  │ (SSE + WS)  │         │
│     │         │              │         └──────┬──────┘         │
│     └─────────┴──────────────┴────────────────┘                │
│                              │                                 │
│                    ┌─────────▼─────────┐                       │
│                    │    Agent Loop     │  Intent routing       │
│                    └────┬──────────┬───┘                       │
│                         │          │                           │
│              ┌──────────▼────┐  ┌──▼───────────────┐           │
│              │  Scheduler    │  │ Routines Engine  │           │
│              │(parallel jobs)│  │(cron, event, wh) │           │
│              └──────┬────────┘  └────────┬─────────┘           │
│                     │                    │                     │
│       ┌─────────────┼────────────────────┘                     │
│       │             │                                          │
│   ┌───▼─────┐  ┌────▼────────────────┐                         │
│   │ Local   │  │    Orchestrator     │                         │
│   │Workers  │  │  ┌───────────────┐  │                         │
│   │(in-proc)│  │  │ Docker Sandbox│  │                         │
│   └───┬─────┘  │  │   Containers  │  │                         │
│       │        │  │ ┌───────────┐ │  │                         │
│       │        │  │ │Worker / CC│ │  │                         │
│       │        │  │ └───────────┘ │  │                         │
│       │        │  └───────────────┘  │                         │
│       │        └─────────┬───────────┘                         │
│       └──────────────────┤                                     │
│                          │                                     │
│              ┌───────────▼──────────┐                          │
│              │    Tool Registry     │                          │
│              │  Built-in, MCP, WASM │                          │
│              └──────────────────────┘                          │
└────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Core Components

Component	Purpose
Agent Loop	Main message handling and job coordination
Router	Classifies user intent (command, query, task)
Scheduler	Manages parallel job execution with priorities
Worker	Executes jobs with LLM reasoning and tool calls
Orchestrator	Container lifecycle, LLM proxying, per-job auth
Web Gateway	Browser UI with chat, memory, jobs, logs, extensions, routines
Routines Engine	Scheduled (cron) and reactive (event, webhook) background tasks
Workspace	Persistent memory with hybrid search
Safety Layer	Prompt injection defense and content sanitization

Usage

Engine v2 is opt-in right now. If you want to run the new engine instead of the legacy agent loop, start IronClaw with ENGINE_V2=true. See Engine v2 architecture for more details.

# First-time setup (configures database, auth, etc.)
ironclaw onboard

# Start interactive REPL
cargo run

# Start interactive REPL with engine v2
ENGINE_V2=true cargo run

# Engine v2 with debug logging
ENGINE_V2=true RUST_LOG=ironclaw=debug cargo run

Development

# Format code
cargo fmt

# Lint
cargo clippy --all --benches --tests --examples --all-features

# Run tests
createdb ironclaw_test
cargo test

# Run specific test
cargo test test_name

• Channels: See docs/channels/overview.mdx for setup of Telegram, Discord, and other channels.
• Changing channel sources: Run ./channels-src/telegram/build.sh before cargo build so the updated WASM is bundled.

Upgrading

Docker — Automatic (Watchtower)

If you started with docker compose up -d, Watchtower is already running alongside IronClaw. It checks GHCR every hour and automatically hot-swaps the ironclaw container when a new image is published — no manual steps needed.

Verify Watchtower activity:

docker compose ps watchtower
docker compose logs watchtower

Docker — Manual

Pull the latest image and recreate the container:

docker compose pull ironclaw
docker compose up -d ironclaw

To verify which image digest is currently running:

docker inspect ghcr.io/jzkk720/ironclaw:latest --format '{{.Created}}'

Binary / Cargo

Re-run the installer script or cargo install command from the Installation section.

OpenClaw Heritage

IronClaw is a Rust reimplementation inspired by OpenClaw. See FEATURE_PARITY.md for the complete tracking matrix.

Key differences:

• Rust vs TypeScript - Native performance, memory safety, single binary
• WASM sandbox vs Docker - Lightweight, capability-based security
• PostgreSQL vs SQLite - Production-ready persistence
• Security-first design - Multiple defense layers, credential protection

License

Licensed under either of:

• Apache License, Version 2.0 (LICENSE-APACHE)
• MIT License (LICENSE-MIT)

at your option.