Open Claw Setup and Configuration: The Complete Installation Guide for 2026

Step-by-step guide to installing, configuring, and optimizing Open Claw for your development environment. Covers Docker, model setup, extensions, team…

Prerequisites

Installation Methods

Initial Configuration

Model Provider Setup

Model Routing Configuration

Extension Management

Team-Wide Configuration

Performance Tuning

We cover everything: prerequisites, five installation methods (including Docker and source builds), model provider configuration, extension management, team-wide setup, performance tuning, and troubleshooting the most common issues. Bookmark this page — you will reference it every time you set up Open Claw on a new machine.

Docker is the best choice when you want complete isolation, need to run Open Claw on a shared server, or want a reproducible environment across your team.

Model routing is Open Claw's most powerful cost-saving feature. It automatically sends different task types to appropriate models:

For teams, commit your config to the repo (without API keys) and use environment variable references:

With everything installed and configured, here is how to verify your setup works: