ZeptoClaw

Ultra-lightweight personal AI assistant.

$ zeptoclaw agent --stream -m "Analyze our API for security issues"

🤖 ZeptoClaw — Streaming analysis...

  [web_fetch]        Fetching API docs...
  [shell]            Running integration tests...
  [longterm_memory]  Storing findings...

→ Found 12 endpoints, 3 missing auth headers, 1 open redirect
→ Saved findings to long-term memory under "api-audit"

✓ Analysis complete in 4.2s

We studied the best AI assistants — and their tradeoffs. OpenClaw's integrations without the 100MB. NanoClaw's security without the TypeScript bundle. PicoClaw's size without the bare-bones feature set. One Rust binary with 17 tools, 5 channels, 8 providers, and container isolation.

Why ZeptoClaw

We studied what works — and what doesn't.

OpenClaw proved an AI assistant can handle 12 channels and 100+ skills. But it costs 100MB and 400K lines. NanoClaw proved security-first is possible. But it's still 50MB of TypeScript. PicoClaw proved AI assistants can run on $10 hardware. But it stripped out everything to get there.

ZeptoClaw took notes. The integrations, the security, the size discipline — without the tradeoffs each one made. One 4MB Rust binary that starts in 50ms, uses 6MB of RAM, and ships with container isolation, prompt injection detection, and a circuit breaker provider stack.

Security

AI agents execute code. Most frameworks trust that nothing will go wrong.

The OpenClaw ecosystem has seen CVE-2026-25253 (CVSS 8.8 — cross-site WebSocket hijacking to RCE), ClawHavoc (341 malicious skills, 9,000+ compromised installations), and 42,000 exposed instances with auth bypass. ZeptoClaw was built with this threat model in mind.

Layer	What it does
Container Isolation	Every shell command runs in Docker or Apple Container — not on your host
Prompt Injection Detection	Aho-Corasick multi-pattern matcher (17 patterns) + 4 regex rules
Secret Leak Scanner	22 regex patterns catch API keys, tokens, and credentials before they reach the LLM
Policy Engine	7 rules blocking system file access, crypto key extraction, SQL injection, encoded exploits
Input Validator	100KB limit, null byte detection, whitespace ratio analysis, repetition detection
Shell Blocklist	Regex patterns blocking reverse shells, `rm -rf`, privilege escalation
SSRF Prevention	DNS pinning, private IP blocking, scheme validation for all web requests
Tool Approval Gate	Require explicit confirmation before executing dangerous tools

Every layer runs by default. No flags to remember, no config to enable.

Install

# One-liner (macOS / Linux)
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/qhkm/zeptoclaw/main/install.sh | sh

# Homebrew
brew install qhkm/tap/zeptoclaw

# Docker
docker pull ghcr.io/qhkm/zeptoclaw:latest

# Build from source
cargo install zeptoclaw --git https://github.com/qhkm/zeptoclaw

Quick Start

# Interactive setup (walks you through API keys, channels, workspace)
zeptoclaw onboard

# Talk to your agent
zeptoclaw agent -m "Hello, set up my workspace"

# Stream responses token-by-token
zeptoclaw agent --stream -m "Explain async Rust"

# Use a built-in template
zeptoclaw agent --template researcher -m "Search for Rust agent frameworks"

# Process prompts in batch
zeptoclaw batch --input prompts.txt --output results.jsonl

# Start as a Telegram/Slack/Discord/Webhook gateway
zeptoclaw gateway

# With full container isolation per request
zeptoclaw gateway --containerized

Migrate from OpenClaw

Already running OpenClaw? ZeptoClaw can import your config and skills in one command.

# Auto-detect OpenClaw installation (~/.openclaw, ~/.clawdbot, ~/.moldbot)
zeptoclaw migrate

# Specify path manually
zeptoclaw migrate --from /path/to/openclaw

# Preview what would be migrated (no files written)
zeptoclaw migrate --dry-run

# Non-interactive (skip confirmation prompts)
zeptoclaw migrate --yes

The migration command:

Converts provider API keys, model settings, and channel configs
Copies skills to ~/.zeptoclaw/skills/
Backs up your existing ZeptoClaw config before overwriting
Validates the migrated config and reports any issues
Lists features that can't be automatically ported

Supports JSON and JSON5 config files (comments, trailing commas, unquoted keys).

Deploy

Any VPS

curl -fsSL https://zeptoclaw.com/setup.sh | bash

Interactive setup guides you through provider keys and channel selection. Installs the binary, creates a systemd service, starts on boot.

Features

Core

Feature	What it does
Multi-Provider LLM	Claude + OpenAI with SSE streaming, retry with backoff, auto-failover
17 Tools + Plugins	Shell, filesystem, web, memory, cron, WhatsApp, Google Sheets, and more
Agent Swarms	Delegate to sub-agents with role-specific prompts and tool whitelists
Batch Mode	Process hundreds of prompts from text/JSONL files with template support
Agent Templates	4 built-in (coder, researcher, writer, analyst) + custom JSON templates

Channels & Integration

Feature	What it does
5-Channel Gateway	Telegram, Slack, Discord, Webhook, CLI — unified message bus
Plugin System	JSON manifest plugins auto-discovered from `~/.zeptoclaw/plugins/`
Hooks	`before_tool`, `after_tool`, `on_error` with Log, Block, and Notify actions
Cron & Heartbeat	Schedule recurring tasks, proactive check-ins, background spawning
Memory & History	Workspace memory, long-term key-value store, conversation history

Security & Ops

Feature	What it does
Container Isolation	Shell execution in Docker or Apple Container per request
Tool Approval Gate	Policy-based gating — require confirmation for dangerous tools
SSRF Prevention	DNS pinning, private IP blocking, scheme validation
Shell Blocklist	Regex patterns blocking reverse shells, rm -rf, privilege escalation
Token Budget & Cost	Per-session budget enforcement, per-model cost estimation for 8 models
Telemetry	Prometheus + JSON metrics export, structured logging, per-tenant tracing
Multi-Tenant	Hundreds of tenants on one VPS — isolated workspaces, ~6MB RAM each

Full documentation — zeptoclaw.com/docs covers configuration, environment variables, CLI reference, deployment guides, and more.

Inspired By

ZeptoClaw is inspired by projects in the open-source AI agent ecosystem — OpenClaw, NanoClaw, and PicoClaw — each taking a different approach to the same problem. ZeptoClaw's contribution is Rust's memory safety, async performance, and container isolation for production multi-tenant deployments.

Development

cargo test              # 1,100+ tests
cargo clippy -- -D warnings
cargo fmt -- --check

License

Apache 2.0 — see LICENSE

ZeptoClaw — Because your AI assistant shouldn't need more RAM than your text editor.

Built by Aisar Labs

kvark/zeptoclaw