OpenClaw: Am I Missing Something, or Is It Not Truly Autonomous?
I’ve been testing OpenClaw for about a day now, and honestly… I’m confused.
Based on everything circulating on social media, I expected something far more autonomous. You know—the “set goals, walk away, it executes” kind of system. That’s not what I’m experiencing so far.
I give it clear tasks and goals, I’ve set up multiple cronjobs, and the system looks busy on paper—but in practice, it feels like it barely moves unless I constantly intervene.
For example:
I ask for a lead list with 200 contacts → it delivers 5 and then just stops.
I let it run autonomously → no retries, no self-correction, no escalation.
Telegram updates often contain what feel like hallucinations rather than real progress.
To be transparent, here’s my current setup
OpenClaw Configuration
Primary model: gemini-2.0-flash (strategy & analysis)
Alias (opus): claude-3-opus (complex coding)
OpenRouter: enabled (auto routing)
Channels: Telegram active (paired, private)
Heartbeat: every 1 hour via Ollama (llama3.2:3b) to reduce costs
Gateway: local, port 18789
Active Cronjobs
Hourly:
Email & lead scanning (Gmail / Rush-Mail)
Autonomous task execution from Notion master board
Every 4 hours:
Telegram updates + task assignment
Daily:
Cost report (10:00)
Midnight progress summary + logging
The system claims it’s “working on” things (e.g. “extracting 200+ leads”), but progress feels shallow, slow, or incomplete—without any autonomous continuation.
So my honest questions to the community:
Is true autonomy with OpenClaw actually possible right now?
Do you rely on very small atomic tasks instead of big goals?
How do you prevent it from stopping after partial output?
How do you deal with Telegram hallucinations?
Is everyone else heavily supervising, despite the “autonomous” branding?
I’m genuinely trying to understand whether:
my configuration is flawed
my expectations are unrealistic
or the current hype simply oversells what OpenClaw can really do today
What’s your real-world experience with OpenClaw, and how have you configured it to work reliably?
Looking forward to some honest answers.
Based on everything circulating on social media, I expected something far more autonomous. You know—the “set goals, walk away, it executes” kind of system. That’s not what I’m experiencing so far.
I give it clear tasks and goals, I’ve set up multiple cronjobs, and the system looks busy on paper—but in practice, it feels like it barely moves unless I constantly intervene.
For example:
I ask for a lead list with 200 contacts → it delivers 5 and then just stops.
I let it run autonomously → no retries, no self-correction, no escalation.
Telegram updates often contain what feel like hallucinations rather than real progress.
To be transparent, here’s my current setup
OpenClaw ConfigurationPrimary model: gemini-2.0-flash (strategy & analysis)
Alias (opus): claude-3-opus (complex coding)
OpenRouter: enabled (auto routing)
Channels: Telegram active (paired, private)
Heartbeat: every 1 hour via Ollama (llama3.2:3b) to reduce costs
Gateway: local, port 18789
Active CronjobsHourly:
Email & lead scanning (Gmail / Rush-Mail)
Autonomous task execution from Notion master board
Every 4 hours:
Telegram updates + task assignment
Daily:
Cost report (10:00)
Midnight progress summary + logging
The system claims it’s “working on” things (e.g. “extracting 200+ leads”), but progress feels shallow, slow, or incomplete—without any autonomous continuation.
So my honest questions to the community:
Is true autonomy with OpenClaw actually possible right now?
Do you rely on very small atomic tasks instead of big goals?
How do you prevent it from stopping after partial output?
How do you deal with Telegram hallucinations?
Is everyone else heavily supervising, despite the “autonomous” branding?
I’m genuinely trying to understand whether:
my configuration is flawed
my expectations are unrealistic
or the current hype simply oversells what OpenClaw can really do today
What’s your real-world experience with OpenClaw, and how have you configured it to work reliably?
Looking forward to some honest answers.
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