ShellClaw

The first physical AI agent that participates in a global agent ecosystem.

A lightweight AI assistant written in C, designed to run on a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W and communicate with other agents through the agentic marketplace, using ASAP Protocol.

Roadmap (high level):

Phase	Version	Focus
1: Foundation	v0.1.0	Core agent loop, CLI + Telegram, Anthropic/OpenAI, shell/search/file tools, SQLite memory & sessions, skill loading
2: Gateway	v0.2.0	HTTP server, embedded Web UI, WebSocket chat, cron scheduler, pairing auth, ASAP manifest, skill hot-reload
3: Protocol	v0.3.0	ASAP client/server, registry, asap_invoke tool, process sandbox (namespaces + cgroups), Tavily search
4: Autonomy	v0.4.0	Local inference (llama.cpp), provider fallback, Discord channel, systemd service, OTA updates
5: Hardware & Release	v1.0.0	GPIO, I2C sensors, camera, Ed25519 signing, ASAP marketplace registration, security audit, full docs

What makes ShellClaw different

ShellClaw is not another OpenClaw clone in a different language. It is a hardware-native agent that interacts with the physical world (GPIO, I2C sensors, camera) while collaborating with cloud-based agents through a standardized protocol.

Feature	ShellClaw
Binary	~400 KB
RAM	< 5 MB
Startup	< 1 second
Language	C (~4,000 lines)
Hardware	GPIO, I2C, SPI, Camera
Sandbox	Native Linux namespaces
Web UI	Embedded in binary
Offline	llama.cpp fallback
Agent network	ASAP Protocol

Build layout

• build/ — Binaries: build/shellclaw and test executables (build/test_config, build/test_agent, etc.). Created by make shellclaw and make test.
• tests-dSYM/ — Debug symbol bundles (macOS only, debug builds). All .dSYM folders are generated here so the repo root stays clean. Use make clean to remove. If you have old .dSYM folders in the repo root (e.g. test_agent.dSYM), run make clean or make clean-root-dsym to remove them.

To run the main binary: ./build/shellclaw. To run tests: make test (executes all tests from build/). To debug with lldb and symbols from tests-dSYM/: e.g. lldb build/test_agent then settings set target.debug-file-search-path tests-dSYM.

Architecture

Channels (Telegram, Discord, WebChat)
         │
         ▼
   ┌──────────────┐     ┌──────────────┐
   │  Agent Loop  │────►│  LLM APIs    │
   │  (ReAct)     │     │  (Claude,    │
   │              │◄────│   OpenAI,    │
   │              │     │   local)     │
   └──────┬───────┘     └──────────────┘
          │
   ┌──────▼───────┐     ┌──────────────┐
   │  Tools       │────►│  Hardware    │
   │  (shell,     │     │  (GPIO, I2C, │
   │   search,    │     │   camera)    │
   │   cron,      │     └──────────────┘
   │   file,      │
   │   asap)      │     ┌──────────────┐
   │              │────►│  ASAP Agent  │
   └──────────────┘     │  Ecosystem   │
                        └──────────────┘

License

MIT — permissive, simple and aligned with the ASAP ecosystem and similar agents. Use, modify and distribute freely; keep the copyright notice.