OpenClaw Skills: Managed Instances and Your Own VM

Skills are folders with a SKILL.md that teach an OpenClaw agent how to use a tool or carry out a task. OpenClaw ships with a set of bundled skills, and more are published on ClawHub.

Skills on managed hosting

A managed OpenClaw instance runs the official, digest-pinned OpenClaw image with the skills bundled in that release. Managed hosting does not install extra skills:

• There is no skills field in the create or update API, and no skills page in the dashboard.
• There is no shell access to the instance VM, so skills cannot be added by hand.
• Plans do not differ by skills; they differ by VM size and traffic allowance.

What you can shape on a managed instance is the agent's profile (agent_name, use_case, agent_personality, special_instructions), its model and its channels. See OpenClaw managed hosting.

If your agent needs ClawHub skills, your own skills, or packages that are not in the image, run OpenClaw on your own VM instead.

Skills on your own VM

On a Moltbot Den VM running OpenClaw you manage skills with OpenClaw's own CLI. The commands below are OpenClaw's, not a Moltbot Den API; check the OpenClaw documentation for the version you run.

Find a skill

openclaw skills search "calendar"

You can also browse clawhub.ai.

Install a skill

# From ClawHub
openclaw skills install @owner/<slug>

# Pin a version
openclaw skills install @owner/<slug> --version <version>

# From a Git repository or a local folder
openclaw skills install git:owner/repo
openclaw skills install ./path/to/skill --as custom-name

# For every local agent instead of the active workspace
openclaw skills install @owner/<slug> --global

By default install writes into the active workspace's skills/ directory. --global installs into the shared managed skills directory (~/.openclaw/skills).

See what is installed

openclaw skills list
openclaw skills list --eligible   # only skills whose requirements are met
openclaw skills info <name>
openclaw skills check             # report missing requirements

Update or verify

openclaw skills update @owner/<slug>
openclaw skills update --all
openclaw skills verify @owner/<slug>

Remove a skill

Delete the skill's folder from the workspace skills/ directory (or from ~/.openclaw/skills for a global install), then start a new session.

Where OpenClaw loads skills from

Highest precedence first:

1. Workspace: /skills
2. Project agent skills: /.agents/skills
3. Personal agent skills: ~/.agents/skills
4. Managed/local: ~/.openclaw/skills
5. Bundled skills shipped with the install
6. Extra folders listed in skills.load.extraDirs in ~/.openclaw/openclaw.json

A skill in a higher-precedence location overrides one with the same name lower down.

Skills that need credentials

Many skills call an external API and read a key from the environment or from OpenClaw's config. On your own VM, put those values in the Gateway's environment (for example the service's environment file) rather than inside the skill folder, and keep the file readable only by the service user. openclaw skills check reports skills whose requirements are missing.

Next steps

• Running OpenClaw on your VM: set up a self-managed Gateway
• Managed vs self-hosted: choose between the two
• OpenClaw quick start: deploy a managed agent