👨‍💻 Use Case Guide

OpenClaw for Developers

AI-powered code reviews, automated deployments, GitHub integration, and CI/CD monitoring. Your always-on dev companion.

The Problem

Context Switching Is Killing Your Flow

You're deep in the zone, solving a complex problem. Then: Slack notification—someone needs a code review. GitHub email—pipeline failed. Another tab to check logs. Another context switch.

Modern development involves juggling a dozen tools:

Each tool has its own interface, its own notifications, its own mental model. You spend as much time navigating tools as you do writing code.

What if you could monitor everything, trigger deployments, review code, and check logs—all from a single Telegram chat?

The Solution

Your AI Dev Operations Assistant

OpenClaw becomes your unified interface to all your dev tools. It can connect to GitHub, monitor your CI/CD pipelines, execute deployment scripts, and help you review code—all through natural conversation.

You say
"What's the status of the api-service pipeline?"
The last 3 runs of api-service:

✅ #847 (main) - 4 min ago - Deployed to prod
✅ #846 (main) - 2 hours ago - All tests passed
❌ #845 (feature/auth-refactor) - 3 hours ago - Test failed: auth.spec.ts

Want me to show the failure details for #845?

No more switching to GitHub Actions, waiting for pages to load, clicking through runs. Ask and get an answer instantly.

🔍

Code Review

AI-powered PR analysis with actionable feedback on bugs, style, and improvements.

🚀

Deployments

Trigger deploys, check status, and rollback—all via chat commands.

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CI/CD Monitoring

Get notified of failures, view logs, and re-run pipelines without leaving chat.

🔗

GitHub Integration

Issues, PRs, commits, releases—manage it all conversationally.

Code Review

AI-Powered Pull Request Analysis

OpenClaw can review code intelligently—not just linting, but actual architectural feedback, bug detection, and improvement suggestions.

You say
"Review PR #234 in the frontend repo"
I've reviewed PR #234 "Add user authentication flow"

Summary: Adds login/signup pages with OAuth support. 847 lines changed across 12 files.

🔴 Critical Issues:
• auth/callback.ts:45 - JWT secret is hardcoded. Move to env variable.
• api/login.ts:23 - No rate limiting on login endpoint. Vulnerable to brute force.

⚠️ Suggestions:
• Consider extracting OAuth logic into a separate service class
• The error messages expose internal details (line 67, 89)
• Missing tests for the refresh token flow

✅ Good stuff:
• Clean separation of concerns in the hooks
• Good use of TypeScript generics in the API client

Want me to leave these as review comments on the PR?

This isn't a replacement for human review—it's a first pass that catches obvious issues before your teammates spend time on it. The "leave as comments" feature means OpenClaw can add inline suggestions directly to the PR.

Explaining Complex Code

You say
"Explain what this regex does: /^(?=.*[A-Z])(?=.*[0-9])(?=.*[!@#$%]).{8,}$/"
This regex validates a password with these requirements:

• (?=.*[A-Z]) - At least one uppercase letter
• (?=.*[0-9]) - At least one number
• (?=.*[!@#$%]) - At least one special character from this set
• .{8,} - Minimum 8 characters total
• ^...$ - Matches the entire string

The (?=...) parts are "lookaheads" - they check conditions without consuming characters, which is why they can all stack at the beginning.

⚠️ Note: This only allows those specific 5 special characters. Users might expect others like & * ( ) - to work too.

Debugging Assistance

You say
"Why might this query be slow?

SELECT * FROM orders o
JOIN users u ON o.user_id = u.id
WHERE o.created_at > '2024-01-01'
AND u.status = 'active'"
Several potential performance issues:

1. SELECT * is wasteful
You're pulling all columns from both tables. Specify only what you need.

2. Missing indexes (likely)
Check if you have indexes on:
• orders.created_at
• orders.user_id
• users.status

3. String comparison on status
If status is always one of a few values, an ENUM type or integer mapping would be faster.

4. Date range might be huge
If 'orders' has millions of rows since Jan 2024, consider adding a more specific date range or paginating.

Run EXPLAIN ANALYZE on this query to see the actual execution plan. Want me to help interpret the output?

CI/CD

Pipeline Monitoring & Control

OpenClaw connects to GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, CircleCI, or whatever CI/CD system you use. Monitor builds, view logs, and trigger actions—all conversationally.

Build Notifications

OpenClaw alerts
🔴 Build failed: backend-api #392

Branch: feature/payment-integration
Failed step: integration-tests (12m 34s)

Error: Connection refused: localhost:5432

Looks like the Postgres service didn't start properly. This usually happens when the docker-compose step times out.

Options:
• View full logs
• Re-run the job
• View the commit that triggered this

Instead of an email notification that you'll check hours later, you get an instant Telegram message with context and actionable options.

Deployment Control

You say
"Deploy the staging branch to production"
⚠️ Hold on—I need to verify a few things first:

• Current staging: v2.4.1 (commit abc123)
• Current production: v2.3.8
• Changes: 47 commits, 3 migrations

The migrations include a schema change to the users table. This should be done during low-traffic hours.

Current prod traffic: ~2,400 req/min (moderate)

Do you want me to:
1. Deploy now anyway
2. Schedule for 3am (lowest traffic)
3. Show me the migration details first

OpenClaw doesn't just blindly execute commands. It provides context, warns about potential issues, and offers alternatives. You're always in control, but you're informed.

Rollbacks

You say
"Something's wrong with prod. Roll back to the previous version."
Rolling back production from v2.4.1 to v2.3.8...

⏳ Stopping current deployment
⏳ Starting v2.3.8 containers
⏳ Running health checks
✅ Health checks passed
⏳ Switching traffic
✅ Rollback complete

Production is now running v2.3.8. I've kept the v2.4.1 containers warm in case you need to switch back.

What triggered this? Should I check the logs for errors?

GitHub Integration

Manage Your Repos Conversationally

OpenClaw connects to GitHub's API and can handle issues, PRs, releases, and repository management without you ever opening github.com.

Issue Management

You say
"What issues are assigned to me?"
You have 4 open issues assigned:

frontend-app
• #156 "Login button unresponsive on mobile" (bug, high priority) - 2 days old
• #149 "Add dark mode toggle" (enhancement) - 1 week old

api-service
• #89 "Rate limiting not working for /search endpoint" (bug) - 3 days old
• #72 "Document the new webhook endpoints" (docs) - 2 weeks old

The login bug and rate limiting issue have gotten some comments. Want me to summarize them?
You say
"Create an issue in api-service: Memory leak in websocket handler. Priority high."
Created issue #94 in api-service:

Memory leak in websocket handler
Labels: bug, priority: high
Link: github.com/yourorg/api-service/issues/94

Want me to assign it to someone or add more details?

Release Management

You say
"Draft release notes for v2.5.0 based on merged PRs since v2.4.0"
Here's a draft based on 23 merged PRs:

🚀 v2.5.0 Release Notes

New Features
• OAuth2 authentication with Google and GitHub (#234)
• Real-time notifications via WebSocket (#228)
• Export data to CSV/Excel (#219)

Improvements
• 40% faster search queries (#241)
• Redesigned settings page (#237)
• Better error messages for API validation (#225)

Bug Fixes
• Fixed memory leak in long-running sessions (#244)
• Corrected timezone handling in scheduled tasks (#232)
• Fixed pagination on mobile devices (#221)

Breaking Changes
• API: Removed deprecated /v1/users endpoint (#240)

Want me to publish this as a draft release on GitHub?

Workflows

Real Developer Workflows with OpenClaw

Morning Standup Prep

You say (7:55 AM)
"Quick standup summary—what did I do yesterday and what's pending?"
Here's your standup prep:

Yesterday:
• Merged PR #234 (OAuth implementation)
• Reviewed 2 PRs (#231, #238)
• Closed issues #156, #158
• 6 commits to feature/notifications branch

Today's pending:
• PR #239 needs your review (requested 18h ago)
• Issue #89 (rate limiting bug) - marked as assigned to you
• Staging deploy blocked waiting for your approval

Blockers to mention:
• The API spec for the notifications feature is still not finalized

End-of-Day Cleanup

You say (6 PM)
"EOD routine: push my changes, update the ticket, and remind me tomorrow to follow up on the design review"
Done:

✅ Pushed 3 commits to feature/user-dashboard
✅ Updated JIRA-456: Status → "In Progress", Comment: "Implemented chart components, testing tomorrow"
✅ Reminder set: Tomorrow 10:00 AM - "Follow up on design review"

Your branch is 4 commits ahead of main. Want me to open a draft PR so others can see progress?

On-Call Support

OpenClaw alerts (2 AM)
🚨 Alert: High error rate on production

Error rate spiked from 0.1% to 4.2% in the last 5 minutes.

Top error: DatabaseConnectionError: too many connections
Affected endpoints: /api/orders, /api/users
Started: 2:03 AM

Possible causes:
• Connection pool exhausted (most likely)
• Database server overloaded
• Recent deploy introduced a connection leak

Quick actions:
• Show recent deploys
• Check database metrics
• Restart API pods
• Escalate to database team

Server Access

SSH & Server Management

OpenClaw can SSH into your servers, run commands, and report back. Perfect for quick checks and routine maintenance.

You say
"Check disk space on prod-web-1"
Disk usage on prod-web-1:

Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use%
/dev/sda1       100G   67G   33G  67%
/dev/sdb1       500G  412G   88G  82%  ← /var/log

The log volume is at 82%. Looking at the largest files...

• /var/log/app/access.log - 156GB (not being rotated!)
• /var/log/app/error.log - 89GB

Want me to set up log rotation? This is a ticking time bomb.
You say
"Tail the error logs on staging, filter for 'timeout'"
Last 10 timeout errors on staging:

2024-03-15 14:23:45 [ERROR] Request timeout: /api/reports/generate (30s)
2024-03-15 14:22:18 [ERROR] Database timeout: query exceeded 10s limit
2024-03-15 14:21:03 [ERROR] Request timeout: /api/reports/generate (30s)
...

The /api/reports/generate endpoint is timing out repeatedly. The database query inside is taking too long. This started happening about an hour ago. Want me to check what changed?

⚠️ Security note: OpenClaw runs commands with the permissions you configure. For production access, consider using a read-only user or limiting commands to specific safe operations.

Setup

Connecting Your Dev Tools

GitHub Integration

Generate a Personal Access Token with repo, workflow, and admin:org permissions:

Setup
"Connect to GitHub. Here's my token: ghp_xxxxx"
Connected to GitHub as @yourname. I found 12 repositories and 3 organizations. I'll monitor activity across all of them. Want me to focus on specific repos for notifications?

CI/CD Webhooks

For GitHub Actions, you just need the token above. For other CI systems, you'll set up webhooks pointing to your OpenClaw server.

Server Access

Add your server's SSH keys to OpenClaw's configuration, or use cloud provider APIs for managed infrastructure.

🔑

GitHub/GitLab

Full repo access: PRs, issues, actions, releases, and webhooks.

⚙️

CI/CD Systems

GitHub Actions, CircleCI, GitLab CI, Jenkins, and more.

☁️

Cloud Providers

AWS, GCP, Vercel, DigitalOcean, and other deployment targets.

📟
Monitoring

Datadog, Sentry, PagerDuty alerts piped to your chat.

Get Started

Level Up Your Dev Workflow

OpenClaw turns your Telegram into a powerful dev operations dashboard. Monitor builds, review code, deploy services, and manage infrastructure—all without context-switching between a dozen browser tabs.

Ready to Streamline Your Dev Workflow?

Set up OpenClaw in 30 minutes and start managing your dev tools via chat.

Start Setup Guide →

Related Reading

⚙️ Advanced OpenClaw Workflows: Chaining Tasks Like a Pro 🔐 Security Best Practices for Your OpenClaw Setup 🚀 5 Things to Automate on Day One