clawchief

clawchief is a public OpenClaw starter kit for turning OpenClaw into a founder / chief-of-staff operating system.

It is opinionated about the architecture of the workflow, but meant to be customized for your own people, programs, calendars, inboxes, trackers, and recurring routines.

Launch post

If you want the original public context for clawchief, here's the launch post from Ryan Carson's real-world rollout of the idea:

• https://x.com/ryancarson/status/2039786704731541903

What this repo gives you

A portable operating model with:

• a source-of-truth clawchief/ layer for priorities, task state, meeting-note policy, and action policy
• an orchestrator heartbeat
• a canonical markdown task system with a separate completed-task archive
• executive-assistant and business-development skills
• cron templates with short DRY prompts
• install docs and workspace templates

Repo layout

Source-of-truth files

• clawchief/priority-map.md
• clawchief/auto-resolver.md
• clawchief/meeting-notes.md
• clawchief/tasks.md
• clawchief/tasks-completed.md

Skills

• skills/executive-assistant
• skills/business-development
• skills/daily-task-manager
• skills/daily-task-prep

Workspace templates

• workspace/HEARTBEAT.md
• workspace/TOOLS.md
• workspace/memory/meeting-notes-state.json
• workspace/tasks/current.md (deprecated pointer for older installs)

Setup docs

• INSTALL-WITH-OPENCLAW.md
• SETUP-GOG.md
• INSTALL-CHECKLIST.md
• CHANNELS.md
• cron/jobs.template.json

Credit / inspiration

A lot of the evolution of this setup was influenced by Pedro Franceschi's OpenClaw setup, which he explained during his conversation with Ashlee Vance on the Core Memory podcast:

• Pedro Franceschi: https://github.com/pedrofranceschi
• Podcast segment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZbbxSgrjhw&t=3847s

In particular, his setup helped inspire the direction of:

• the priority map
• the auto-resolver layer
• the ingestion pipeline mindset for turning passive context into active operational state

The design pattern

The system works best when you separate:

1. prioritization -> clawchief/priority-map.md
2. resolution policy -> clawchief/auto-resolver.md
3. meeting-note ingestion policy -> clawchief/meeting-notes.md
4. live task state -> clawchief/tasks.md
5. archive state -> clawchief/tasks-completed.md
6. local environment details -> workspace/TOOLS.md
7. recurring orchestration -> workspace/HEARTBEAT.md + cron jobs

That separation is the main thing this repo is trying to teach.

Install order

1. Read INSTALL-WITH-OPENCLAW.md
2. Complete SETUP-GOG.md
3. Copy the skills into ~/.openclaw/skills/
4. Copy clawchief/ and workspace/ templates into ~/.openclaw/workspace/
5. Replace placeholders and customize workspace/TOOLS.md
6. Create cron jobs from cron/jobs.template.json
7. Run INSTALL-CHECKLIST.md

Good customization targets

Customize these first:

• workspace/TOOLS.md
• clawchief/priority-map.md
• clawchief/tasks.md
• skills/business-development/resources/partners.md
• cron/jobs.template.json

Core operating lessons baked into this repo

• use Gmail message-level search, not thread-only search
• check all relevant calendars before booking
• keep one canonical live task file
• archive prior-day completions into a separate file
• update the real source of truth in the same turn when you act
• keep cron prompts short and let skills hold workflow logic
• use a policy layer for prioritization and a separate policy layer for auto-resolution
• treat meeting notes as a live signal source, not passive documents

Private local files you probably still want

You may still want your own private workspace files such as:

• AGENTS.md
• SOUL.md
• USER.md
• IDENTITY.md
• MEMORY.md
• memory/

Those are intentionally not part of this public repo.