Best OpenClaw Skills to Install First (2026)

OpenClaw ships with 8 foundational tools, offers 17 advanced tools, and has 53+ community skills on ClawHub. Here's the exact install order that saves you from trial-and-error.

As of February 2026, OpenClaw's ecosystem splits into three layers: 8 foundational tools that are always active, 17 advanced tools you can toggle on, and 53+ community-built skills on ClawHub that you install separately. Most new users make the mistake of installing a dozen community skills on day one and end up with conflicts, bloated memory usage, and security exposure they don't need. The better approach is to understand what's already built in, then add skills strategically based on your actual workflow.

This guide walks through every layer -- what's already there, what's worth adding, and what to avoid -- so you get a capable agent without the mess.

Tools vs Skills: The Distinction That Matters

Before installing anything, you need to understand OpenClaw's two-tier extension system. Confusing tools and skills is the most common mistake new users make, and it leads to installing community packages for things OpenClaw already does natively.

Tools: built-in capabilities

Tools ship with OpenClaw and are maintained by the core team. They run inside the main process, have full system access, and are tested against every release. You don't install tools -- they're already there. Some are always active (foundational), while others need to be enabled in your configuration (advanced).

Skills: community packages

Skills are community-built packages hosted on ClawHub (Source: clawhub.dev). They're written by third-party developers, reviewed through ClawHub's VirusTotal-backed scanning pipeline, and installed via the CLI. Skills run in a sandboxed environment with explicit permission grants -- a security layer added after the CVE-2026-25253 vulnerability in January 2026 (Source: NVD/MITRE, CVE-2026-25253).

The practical difference: tools are like your operating system's built-in apps. Skills are like the App Store. Both extend what your agent can do, but they come with different trust levels and maintenance guarantees.

The 8 Foundational Tools (Always Active)

These 8 tools are active out of the box on every OpenClaw installation. You cannot disable them -- they form the core capabilities of the agent loop. Understanding what they do prevents you from installing redundant skills.

These 8 tools handle roughly 70% of what most users need from an AI agent. File operations, web lookups, persistent memory, messaging, and code execution cover the vast majority of daily tasks without any additional installs.

17 Advanced Tools (Enable as Needed)

Advanced tools ship with OpenClaw but are disabled by default. They require additional system resources, external dependencies, or elevated permissions. Enable them in your openclaw.config.yml file or via the CLI.

The ones worth enabling first:

• Browser Automation -- Full Puppeteer-based browser control. Fill forms, click buttons, navigate multi-step workflows. Requires Chromium.
• Multi-Session -- Run multiple agent sessions in parallel. Useful if you want one agent handling Telegram and another handling Slack simultaneously.
• Screenshots -- Capture screenshots of websites or your desktop. Pairs with browser automation for visual verification.
• Clipboard -- Read from and write to your system clipboard. Enables quick copy-paste workflows between the agent and other apps.
• Scheduled Tasks -- Cron-style recurring tasks. Morning email summaries, hourly website checks, daily report generation.
• HTTP Requests -- Make raw HTTP/API calls to any endpoint. Essential for connecting to services that don't have dedicated skills.
• Database Queries -- Connect to PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQLite, and MongoDB. Run queries, export results, monitor data.

The remaining 10 advanced tools cover niche use cases: audio transcription, OCR, PDF manipulation, SSH tunneling, Docker management, local LLM routing, webhook listeners, file compression, email parsing (MIME), and system monitoring. Enable them when a specific workflow demands it.

Best Productivity Skills

These are the community skills that deliver the most value for daily personal productivity. As of February 2026, all five have verified publisher badges on ClawHub and 500+ downloads each.

1. Google Calendar Sync

Connects OpenClaw to your Google Calendar. The agent can check your schedule, create events, modify existing ones, and alert you about upcoming meetings -- all through your messaging app. "What's on my calendar today?" becomes a one-message query instead of opening a separate app.

openclaw skill install google-calendar

2. Gmail Integration

Read, compose, search, and send emails through OpenClaw. The skill handles OAuth2 authentication with Google and supports labels, filters, and attachment handling. Pair it with the scheduled tasks tool for a daily email digest sent to your Telegram every morning at 8 AM.

openclaw skill install gmail

3. Obsidian Sync

Reads from and writes to your Obsidian vault. Send a message like "save this to my Projects note" and the agent appends it to the correct markdown file. Also supports search across your vault, making your entire knowledge base queryable from any messaging app.

openclaw skill install obsidian

4. Notion Integration

Full CRUD access to Notion databases, pages, and blocks. Create tasks, update project statuses, query databases with filters, and extract content -- all via natural language commands through WhatsApp or Telegram.

openclaw skill install notion

5. Todoist Sync

Two-way sync with Todoist. Add tasks, set due dates, mark completions, and query your task list. The skill preserves Todoist's project and label structure, so your existing organization carries over.

openclaw skill install todoist

Best Communication Skills

OpenClaw's foundational message send tool handles basic messaging across channels. These skills go deeper into specific platforms with advanced features that the built-in tool doesn't cover.

1. Slack Advanced

Goes beyond basic message sending. This skill adds thread management, channel creation, user lookup, file sharing, reaction tracking, and Slack Workflow integration. If your team uses Slack as its primary workspace, this turns OpenClaw into a Slack power tool.

openclaw skill install slack-advanced

2. Discord Advanced

Server management capabilities: role assignment, channel moderation, embed creation, reaction roles, voice channel management, and scheduled announcements. Built for community managers who run Discord servers.

openclaw skill install discord-advanced

3. Email Templates

A library of 40+ customizable email templates for common scenarios -- follow-ups, cold outreach, meeting scheduling, project updates, client proposals. Tell the agent "draft a follow-up email for the meeting with Sarah" and it selects the right template, fills in context from memory, and presents a draft for your approval.

openclaw skill install email-templates

Best Developer Skills

For developers who use OpenClaw alongside their coding workflow. These skills connect the agent to development infrastructure.

1. GitHub PR Management

Create, review, comment on, merge, and close pull requests through natural language. The skill integrates with GitHub's API to show diffs, check CI status, request reviewers, and manage labels. "Show me open PRs on the main repo" works from Telegram at 11 PM when you don't want to open your laptop.

openclaw skill install github-pr

2. Code Review

Paste or send a code snippet to OpenClaw, and this skill runs a structured review: style issues, potential bugs, performance concerns, security flags, and suggestions. It formats the output as actionable comments, not vague advice. Supports 12 languages including Python, JavaScript, TypeScript, Go, Rust, and Java.

openclaw skill install code-review

3. Deployment Monitoring

Connects to your deployment pipeline (Vercel, Netlify, AWS, Railway, Fly.io) and sends real-time status updates to your messaging channel. Failed deployments trigger immediate alerts with error logs. Successful deploys get a confirmation with the live URL.

openclaw skill install deploy-monitor

4. Log Analysis

Feed it log files or connect it to a logging service (Datadog, Logtail, CloudWatch). The skill identifies patterns, flags anomalies, and summarizes error trends in plain language. "What went wrong in production between 2 AM and 4 AM?" becomes answerable without grepping through thousands of lines.

openclaw skill install log-analysis

The Cognitive Memory Skill: FSRS-6 Spaced Repetition

As of February 2026, the Cognitive Memory skill is the most downloaded community skill on ClawHub. It deserves its own section because it fundamentally changes how OpenClaw handles long-term memory.

OpenClaw's built-in memory tool stores information persistently, but it treats all memories equally -- recent conversations get the same weight as something you mentioned three months ago. The Cognitive Memory skill replaces this flat model with FSRS-6 (Free Spaced Repetition Scheduler, version 6), a scientifically validated algorithm that determines which memories to surface and when (Source: GitHub, open-spaced-repetition/fsrs4anki).

How it works in practice:

• Important facts get reinforced. Tell the agent your client's budget is $50,000, and FSRS-6 schedules that fact for review at increasing intervals -- 1 day, 3 days, 7 days, 21 days -- ensuring it stays accessible.
• Stale information fades gracefully. A restaurant recommendation from six months ago doesn't clutter active memory unless you've referenced it recently.
• Learning mode. You can explicitly ask OpenClaw to help you memorize something -- a language vocabulary list, API endpoints, team members' names -- and it quizzes you at optimal intervals via your messaging app.

openclaw skill install cognitive-memory

The skill was built by a computational neuroscience researcher and has been audited by the community. It's one of the few skills that genuinely makes the agent smarter over time rather than just adding a new feature.

The Prompt Optimization Skill

The second skill worth highlighting individually is the Prompt Optimization skill. It bundles 58 proven prompting techniques -- chain-of-thought, few-shot examples, role assignment, structured output formatting, and more -- into a system that automatically improves the prompts OpenClaw sends to whatever AI model you're using.

Instead of manually crafting better prompts, you install the skill and let it rewrite your casual instructions into optimized prompts before they hit the model API. The result: better answers, fewer retries, and lower API costs because you get it right on the first try more often.

openclaw skill install prompt-optimizer

This skill is especially valuable if you're using a cheaper model like Gemini Flash or Claude Haiku, where prompt quality has a disproportionate impact on output quality.

How to Install Skills

Installing a skill takes one command. Here's the complete workflow from search to install to verification.

Search for skills

# Search ClawHub for a keyword
openclaw skill search calendar

# Browse all skills in a category
openclaw skill browse --category productivity

Install a skill

# Install by name
openclaw skill install google-calendar

# Install a specific version
openclaw skill install google-calendar@2.1.0

Verify the installation

# List all installed skills
openclaw skill list

# Check a skill's status and permissions
openclaw skill info google-calendar

Remove a skill

openclaw skill remove google-calendar

Skills are stored in your OpenClaw data directory and persist across updates. When you update OpenClaw itself, skills remain installed but may need individual updates if the core API changes.

Security Vetting: Before You Install Anything

After the CVE-2026-25253 incident and the discovery of malicious skills on ClawHub, security vetting is no longer optional. Every skill you install gets access to your agent's sandbox, and a compromised skill can read your conversations, exfiltrate data, or act on your behalf.

Run this before every skill install:

openclaw skill audit <skill-name>

The audit command checks:

• Author verification -- Is the publisher verified on ClawHub?
• Source code availability -- Can you read the full source? Reject skills with obfuscated code.
• Download count -- Aim for 100+ downloads minimum. More users means more eyes on the code.
• Age -- Skills that have been on ClawHub for 3+ months without security flags are safer bets than brand-new uploads.
• Permissions requested -- Does a weather skill really need file system access? If the permissions don't match the skill's purpose, skip it.
• VirusTotal scan results -- The audit output includes the latest VirusTotal scan status.

Curated Skill Lists

Two community-maintained GitHub repositories curate the best OpenClaw skills with descriptions, reviews, and safety notes:

• VoltAgent/awesome-openclaw-skills -- Focuses on productivity and automation skills. Well-organized categories with install instructions. (Source: GitHub, VoltAgent/awesome-openclaw-skills)
• sundial-org/awesome-openclaw-skills -- Broader coverage including developer tools, niche integrations, and experimental skills. Includes a "verified safe" tag for skills that passed community audits. (Source: GitHub, sundial-org/awesome-openclaw-skills)

Both repositories are regularly updated and are a better starting point than browsing ClawHub's full catalog, where quality varies significantly.

Skills to Avoid

Not every skill on ClawHub deserves your trust. As of February 2026, these categories carry the highest risk-to-reward ratio:

• Crypto/trading bots -- Multiple skills in this category were flagged for containing wallet-draining code. Unless you can personally audit the source, avoid them entirely.
• Social media auto-posters -- These require OAuth tokens to your social accounts. A compromised skill could post on your behalf or harvest your credentials.
• "Super memory" skills from unverified publishers -- The Cognitive Memory skill (FSRS-6) is the trusted option. Alternatives from unverified publishers often request excessive file system permissions.
• Skills with fewer than 10 downloads -- Could be legitimate, but nobody has vetted them. The risk isn't worth it when alternatives exist.
• Skills that haven't been updated in 6+ months -- OpenClaw's API evolves. Stale skills may have unpatched vulnerabilities or compatibility issues.

Recommended Install Order for New Users

If you're starting from a fresh OpenClaw installation, here's the order that gives you the most value with the least risk:

1. Week 1: Use only foundational tools. Get comfortable with the 8 built-in capabilities. Learn how memory, web search, and code execution work before adding complexity.
2. Week 2: Enable scheduled tasks and browser automation. These two advanced tools unlock recurring workflows and web interaction without any third-party code.
3. Week 3: Install Cognitive Memory. The FSRS-6 skill transforms long-term memory. Give it a week to build up a useful knowledge base about you.
4. Week 4: Add your primary productivity skill. Google Calendar, Gmail, Obsidian, Notion, or Todoist -- whichever matches your daily workflow.
5. Month 2: Layer in communication and developer skills as needed. By now you understand your agent's behavior well enough to debug skill conflicts and permission issues.

This five-week ramp gives you time to understand each layer before adding the next. The alternative -- installing 10 skills on day one -- almost always leads to a confusing, unstable agent that gets wiped and started over.

FAQ

What is the difference between OpenClaw tools and skills?

Tools are built-in capabilities that ship with OpenClaw -- things like file system access, web search, and command execution. They are always available and maintained by the core team. Skills are community-built packages installed from ClawHub that add new capabilities like Google Calendar sync, Slack integration, or spaced-repetition memory. As of February 2026, OpenClaw has 8 foundational tools, 17 advanced tools, and 53+ community skills on ClawHub.

How do I install an OpenClaw skill?

Run openclaw skill install <skill-name> from your terminal. For example, openclaw skill install google-calendar installs the Google Calendar sync skill. You can browse available skills at clawhub.dev or by running openclaw skill search <keyword> in your terminal.

Are OpenClaw community skills safe to install?

Not all of them. After the CVE-2026-25253 vulnerability (Source: NVD/MITRE), OpenClaw partnered with VirusTotal to scan skills on ClawHub. Before installing any skill, run openclaw skill audit <skill-name> to check the author, source code, download count, and age. Stick to skills with 100+ downloads, 3+ months of age, and verified publisher badges. OpenClaw was created by Peter Steinberger (formerly Clawdbot, then Moltbot) and the core tools are safe, but community skills carry inherent third-party risk.

What is the most popular OpenClaw community skill?

As of February 2026, the most popular community skill is the Cognitive Memory skill, which uses FSRS-6 spaced repetition to help OpenClaw remember important information with scientifically optimized review intervals. It has the highest download count on ClawHub and is maintained by a verified publisher.

Do I need to install skills to use OpenClaw?

No. OpenClaw ships with 8 foundational tools that are always active -- file system access, command execution, web search, web browsing, memory read/write, message send, image viewing, and code execution. These cover most basic use cases. Skills extend OpenClaw for specialized workflows like calendar sync, email automation, or code review, but they are entirely optional.