What is an AI agent and its benefits?

An AI agent is a program that can perform tasks either autonomously or upon your request. The main advantage of an AI agent is that it does not require complex commands with detailed and precise parameters (unlike, a terminal) – it accepts and processes requests in a natural human language and passes them to a connected AI model (LLM) to generate a response.

OpenClaw is one of the popular free AI agents. The key strength of this solution is that it combines the power of language models with the ability to perform various actions on the device where it is installed, for example, it can work with files, launch programs, or even write code. You can learn more on the OpenClaw official website.

To make sure that the agent is always accessible to users from any device, including mobile messengers, you can install it on a dedicated server / VM that always stays powered on. The key requirement is that this server is accessible from your network. We will install OpenClaw on a dedicated VM and configure communication with the agent through a chat in TrueСonf client applications.

Getting ready

We will use Debian 13 as an example for the OpenClaw + TrueConf setup. We recommend that you update your packages with this command before starting:

Install the curl tool if you do not have it:

We recommend using the latest version of Node.js. Run this command to check whether this tool is installed and its version:

If necessary, install the latest version (at the time when this guide was written, the version 26 was the latest one) by executing the following commands one after another:

Next, verify the installation with this command:

Installation of OpenClaw

Before installation, you need to choose the AI model and get an API key. To get an API key, choose a provider. We will use OpenCode as an example. On the main page, select Zen → Get started with Zen and log in to your account. Below you will see your API key and a large list of available models:

To install OpenClaw, just run this command:

The setup wizard will open. Let us go through all the steps in detail.

The setup wizard will check whether your OS meets system requirements, and install missing components such as Node.js and Git. During the first step, Select Yes to confirm that you understand the level of system access granted to the agent. Then choose QuickStart (recommended):

Now let us consider the main steps. First, select your AI model provider:

Next, paste your API key to access the model. As a rule, this key can be found in a user’s personal area on the LLM vendor website.

During the Select channel (QuickStart) step, choose Skip for now, since we will later configure our TrueConf plugin as the channel:

To make sure that the AI agent can search for information on the Internet, select a search provider:

During the next step, you will be able to configure the AI agent’s skills, in other words, you can determine what the agent is able to do. For a faster deployment, skip this step by selecting No:

Finally, choose Hatch in terminal (recommended):

Installation of the TrueConf plugin for OpenClaw

To install the plugin, run this command:

The plugin will be configured through a wizard similar to the one used for OpenClaw. Launch the wizard with:

Let us go through each configuration step:

• Choose the English language (it will be used for displaying the instructions in the wizard).
• Enter the server domain name or IP address.
• Type the login of the account under which the agent will work.
• Enter the password for the agent’s account.



• We recommend choosing the option Specify the path to the root certificate (CA) when configuring TLS, if you are using a self‑signed certificate (you can get this certificate from your server administrator). Next, enter the certificate path. If you are using a commercial certificate, disable TLS certificate verification.
• Finally, select Yes to complete the configuration.

After installation and configuration, start the gateway with this command:

The account used by the agent for connecting to TrueConf Server will have the Online status, and you can interact with the agent via the corporate chat in one of TrueConf client applications.

If needed, you can modify the TrueConf adapter settings, for example, if you want to switch to a different account for the AI agent. To do it, run the configuration wizard again:

Then start the gateway:

You can now begin working with the AI agent: