A saner alternative to OpenClaw.
OpenCrow is a messaging bot that bridges chat messages to pi, a coding agent with built-in tools, session persistence, auto-compaction, and multi-provider LLM support. Instead of reimplementing all of that in Go, OpenCrow spawns pi as a long-lived subprocess via its RPC protocol and acts as a thin bridge. The bot operates with a single active conversation at a time; session data persists across restarts.
OpenCrow supports multiple messaging backends:
- Matrix — E2EE chat rooms via mautrix
- Nostr — NIP-17 encrypted DMs via go-nostr
- Signal — Signal chats via
signal-cli
graph LR
Transport[Matrix / Nostr / Signal] -->|message| Inbox[(Inbox)]
Heartbeat -->|timer| Inbox
Reminders[(reminders)] -->|due| Inbox
Trigger["trigger.pipe"] -->|external| Inbox
Inbox -->|dequeue| Worker -->|RPC| Pi["pi process"]
Pi -->|response| Worker -->|reply| Transport
The Go bot receives messages from the configured backend, forwards them to the pi process, collects the response, and sends it back.
Warning
There is no whitelisting, permission system, or tool filtering. Trying to bolt that onto LLM tool use is inherently futile — the model will find a way around it. The only real protection is running OpenCrow in a containerized or sandboxed environment. Use a NixOS container, VM, or similar isolation. The included NixOS module does exactly that. Don't run it on a machine where you'd mind the LLM running arbitrary commands.
- Tutorial — Step-by-step NixOS deployment with Matrix (includes Nostr variant)
- Configuration — Environment variables, backend settings, secrets, and authentication
- Skills — Teaching the agent new capabilities via markdown instructions
- Extensions — TypeScript lifecycle hooks and custom tools
- Heartbeat & Reminders — Periodic checks, one-shot reminders, trigger pipes