Voice Communication with OpenClaw Agent Software

📝 You need to start talking to your OpenClaw agents. If you're still using a keyboard to communicate with your agents, you're wasting valuable time! Here's why it's time to grab a mic, teach your agent some basic skills, and bring them into your world instead of trapping them behind a screen. The era of asking chatbots questions and then patiently waiting for them to respond is over. The only secret to truly leveling up your productivity is making your agents proactive, so they're taking independent actions when they're most essential, rather than waiting around for a prompt. The best way to do that? Opening up a direct vocal line of communication between you and your agent swarm. You need to give them instructions as you come up with brilliant ideas -- no matter where in the world you happen to be. And they need to alert you about important updates, even when you're away from your work station. STEP 1: INTRODUCE YOURSELF OpenClaw agents are already pretty smart, right out of the box. But they are also generic: a blank slate with no personality, identity, or goals. Fortunately, it's easy to bring your agent to life, and start them on their journey toward becoming a true virtual assistant, rather than just another bot. The two most important files for these purposes are: SOUL.md and USER.md SOUL.md is just what it sounds like. The home of your agent's personality, identity, and perhaps most importantly, their tone. Looking to create a just-the-facts Type A fixer who gives it to you straight? Or are you building a companion who will hang out with you while you get your work done? This is where you tell them who you're looking for. USER.md provides the agent with information about YOU, the user. It gives them valuable context about your world, your contacts, your company, and the sorts of projects on which you're hoping to collaborate. STEP 2: TALK IT OUT Now you COULD just update these files yourself, directly. They're located in your workspace folder, and you can change them with any text editor: nano ~/.openclaw/workspace/SOUL.md nano ~/.openclaw/workspace/AGENTS.md You can also give your OpenClaw agent instructions in plain language, and let them update the files on their own. "Update your SOUL.md to be less flowery and more direct," for example. OR you could do as our recent guest @jordymaui suggests in his viral X article and have a conversation with your agent. Out loud. Jordy recommends getting an API key from Groq and using their voice/audio transcription models for this. Once you have an API key, it's easy to add it to your OpenClaw config: export GROQ_API_KEY="your-key-here" Once that's set up, you can send your agent voice messages via WhatsApp or Telegram that it can easily understand. Jordy recommends allowing your agent to "interview you" via one of these apps, running through 10-15 questions, which you then answer via a voice note rather than typing. This will give your agent more of a sense for your personality, goals, and situation. (Especially if you answer honestly!) Then tell your agent to use your answers to update its .md files accordingly. STEP 3: UNDERSTANDING SOULS AND ROLES If your primary goal is just to create a new digital buddy, your work is done! Have fun, you two. But if you're empowering these OpenClaw agents to accomplish concrete goals, it's important to understand their dynamic, and how they will work together as a unit. Consider the virtual developer squad that another TWiST guest, Tremaine Grant of the Pulse app, created to help write his code and grow his business. His agents all have defined roles, just as a group of human co-workers would. Nora is the CEO who keeps everything moving efficiently, focuses on the Big Picture (or "North Star" in Tremaine's terminology), and assigns tasks to other agents. Sage is a deep researcher who takes a long view. Solara is the "brand voice" who understands the community the best. Scout is the skeptic that forces the other agents to back up their ideas and proof their work. Tremaine's agents even have digital "stand-ups" where they brainstorm ideas and debate potential initiatives. This set-up isn't just an office simulation, but the key to making his agent team truly autonomous. Tremaine gets to approve their work before it goes live, but these little bots can conceive of a new feature, "discuss it," and eventually code it by themselves without human intervention, because they work as a collaborative team of specialized individuals. STEP 4: GIVE YOUR AGENT A VOICE So being able to talk to your agent, and tell them about themselves and yourself directly, is important. But TWiST guest @JesseRank showed us how to take things even a step further, and allow your agent to talk back to you. In any room in your house. Any time THEY have something important to say, not just when prompted. Jesse's the founder and CTO of @OpenHome, a smart speaker (and smart speaker dev kit) that brings OpenClaw agents into our world, allowing them to speak and interact with their humans. As Jesse explains, bringing your agent into your house makes them proactive in a way they could never be while trapped inside a device. In a memorable Valentine's Day post, he captured his agent telling him about a conversation that she overheard -- and responding with a helpful tip about keeping his sweetheart happy -- all without any kind of direct prompting from Jesse. It's the next logical step between a helpful chatbot on your desktop and JARVIS, Tony Stark's constant digital companion and helper. The best part: OpenHome dev kits are FREE to developers who want to build cool applications for/with their agents. Apply here, read Jesse's post for more info, or keep watching TWiST live, cause we're giving them away as prizes in the chat. 📺WATCH THE FULL EPISODE HERE! 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