8 ms·

Clawdbot Renames to Moltbot

249 points by philip1209 9mo ago

MallocVoidstar 9mo ago
As a result of this the official install is now installing a squatted package they don't control: https://github.com/moltbot/moltbot/issues/2760 https://github.com/moltbot/moltbot/issues/2760 https://github.com/moltbot/moltbot/issues/2775 https://github.com/moltbot/moltbot/issues/2775 But this is basically in line with average LLM agent safety.
- no-name-here 9mo ago
  It's even worse than I guessed - moltbot updated their official docs to install the new package name ( https://github.com/moltbot/moltbot?tab=readme-ov-file#install-recommended https://github.com/moltbot/moltbot?tab=readme-ov-file#instal... ), but it was a package name they have not obtained, and a different non-clawdbot 'moltbot' package is there. It's been 15 hours since that "CRITICAL" issue bug was opened, and moltbot has had dozens of commits ( https://github.com/moltbot/moltbot/commits/main/ https://github.com/moltbot/moltbot/commits/main/ ), but not to fix or take down the official install instructions that continue to have people install a 'moltbot' package that is not theirs.
janpio 9mo ago
Motivation for rename: https://x.com/moltbot/status/2016058924403753024 https://x.com/moltbot/status/2016058924403753024 https://xcancel.com/moltbot/status/2016058924403753024 https://xcancel.com/moltbot/status/2016058924403753024
- ludwigvan 9mo ago
  Seems like an official ClaudeBot from Anthropic is in the works, then?
  - dewey 9mo ago
    After Claude Cowork etc. that doesn't really sound like a surprise.
  - jsheard 9mo ago
    They already use the name ClaudeBot for their web crawler: https://support.claude.com/en/articles/8896518-does-anthropic-crawl-data-from-the-web-and-how-can-site-owners-block-the-crawler https://support.claude.com/en/articles/8896518-does-anthropi...
- _--__--__ 9mo ago
  >and honestly? "Molt" fits perfectly - it's what lobsters do to grow. So do we think Anthropic or the artist formerly known as Clawdbot paid for the tokens to have Claude write this tweet announcing the rename of a Product That Is Definitely Not Claude?
achillean 9mo ago
Already seeing some of the new Moltbot deployments exposed to the Internet: https://www.shodan.io/search/report?query=http.favicon.hash%3A-805544463%20http https://www.shodan.io/search/report?query=http.favicon.hash%...
- rahimnathwani 9mo ago
  Maybe those folks buying Mac Minis to host at home weren't so silly after all. The exposed ones are almost all hosted on VPSs which, by design, have publicly-routable IP addresses. But anyway I think connecting to a Clawdbot instance requires pairing unless you're coming from localhost: https://docs.molt.bot/start/pairing https://docs.molt.bot/start/pairing
  - paxys 9mo ago
    The silly part is buying a $600 Mac mini when any $100 NUC or $50 raspberry pi or any cheap mini PC off of eBay will do the job exactly the same.
    - rahimnathwani 9mo ago
      If you want iMessage you still need an always-on Mac, whether that's the main moltbot gateway, or the MacOS app running in 'node mode' to allow a moltbot gateway to use it to send/receive iMessages.
      - Fnoord 9mo ago
        > need an always-on Mac Not really, you can emulate macOS on any Linux/x86-64. But it is actually a good point to get a Mac Mini instead of a NUC. The Mac Mini is going to deliver better performance per Watt.
        aschobel 9mo ago
        Can you really register iMessage on an emulated MacOS these days? I'd love to learn more, the AIs I asked say it doesn't seem possible in VMs anymore.
marcd35 9mo ago
something about giving full read write access to every file on my PC and internet message interface just rubs me the wrong way. some unscrupulous actors are probably chomping at the bit looking for vulnerabilities to get carte blanche unrestricted access. be safe out there kiddos
- spondyl 9mo ago
  This would seem to be inline with the development philosophy for clawdbot. I like the concept but I was put off by the lack of concern around security, specifically for something that interfaces with the internet > These days I don’t read much code anymore. I watch the stream and sometimes look at key parts, but I gotta be honest - most code I don’t read. I think it's fine for your own side projects not meant for others but Clawdbot is, to some degree, packaged for others to use it seems. https://steipete.me/posts/2025/shipping-at-inference-speed https://steipete.me/posts/2025/shipping-at-inference-speed
- cobolcomesback 9mo ago
  At minimum this thing should be installed in its own VM. I shudder to think of people running this on their personal machine… I’ve been toying around with it and the only credentials I’m giving it are specifically scoped down and/or are new user accounts created specifically for this thing to use. I don’t trust this thing at all with my own personal GitHub credentials or anything that’s even remotely touching my credit cards.
- OGEnthusiast 9mo ago
  That's almost 100% likely to have already happened without anyone even noticing. I doubt many of these people are monitoring their Moltbot/Clawdbot logs to even notice a remote prompt or a prompt injection attack that siphons up all their email.
- AlexCoventry 9mo ago
  Yeah, this new trend of handing over all your keys to an AI and letting it rip looks like a horrific security nightmare, to me. I get that they're powerful tools, but they still have serious prompt-injection vulnerabilities. Not to mention that you're giving your model provider de facto access to your entire life and recorded thoughts. Sam Altman was also recently encouraging people to give OpenAI models full access to their computing resources.
tcdent 9mo ago
Could have just called it "clawbot" and maintained some of the hype while eliminating the IP concerns. Instead they chose a completely different name with unrecognizable resonance.
- stingraycharles 9mo ago
  I think it’s fine, they found a way to frame it over a lobster’s lifecycle. Plenty of worse renames of businesses have happened in the past that ended up being fine, I’m sure this one will go over as such as well.
- ketanhwr 9mo ago
  Apparently "clawbot" wasn't allowed either: https://x.com/steipete/status/2016091353365537247 https://x.com/steipete/status/2016091353365537247
  - direwolf20 9mo ago
    A cease and desist doesn't mean you have to stop doing everything it says. It only means you should comply with the law.
    - xuki 9mo ago
      You don't want to spend time and money to fight with a $350B company.
      - direwolf20 9mo ago
        If that's your logic they can make you do anything they like. They can ask you for $100m "because I said so" and you'll comply to avoid spending $200m on lawyers.
        kube-system 9mo ago
        Usually it doesn't take $200m to prove that "because I said so" isn't a valid claim of damages. But otherwise, you've got the math right. Settling is typically advised when the cost to litigate is expected to be more than the cost to settle.
putlake 9mo ago
The way trademarks work is that if you don't actively defend them you weaken your rights. So Anthropic needs to defend their ownership of "Claude". I'm guessing they reached out to Peter Steinberger and asked nicely that he rename Clawdbot.
- mattmaroon 9mo ago
  Last year in my area, a food truck decided to call itself Leggo My Egg Roll, and obvious play on Eggo waffles tagline. Kellogg sent them a cease and desist, they decided to ignore it. Kellogg then offered to pay them to rebrand, they still wouldn’t. They then sued for $15 million.
  - clarkmoody 9mo ago
    ...and then what happened?
    - Barbing 9mo ago
      Good question https://local12.com/news/nation-world/kellogg-leggo-my-eggroll-says-it-had-no-other-choice-but-to-file-lawsuit-against-an-ohio-food-truck-cincinnati-consumer-court-cases-copyright-tagline-slogan-marketing-federal-northern-district-trademark-infringement-offer-request-threats-demands-material https://local12.com/news/nation-world/kellogg-leggo-my-eggro...
      - z2 9mo ago
        Could they have gotten around this by actually serving Eggo waffles? Would that have then fallen under nominative fair use?
        mattmaroon 9mo ago
        I doubt it, no. I couldn’t go buy Taco Bell sauce at the store, serve it at my restaurant, and call my restaurant Taco Bell. They could probably mention it on their menu.
dcre 9mo ago
Hard to think of a worse name. Maybe Moistbot?
shrubble 9mo ago
Ogden Nash has his poem about canaries: "The song of canaries Never varies, And when they're moulting They're pretty revolting." Wondering if Moltbot is related to the poem, humorously.
- djmips 9mo ago
  I believe it's more about molting lobsters. Clawdbot used a lobster mascot or something.
0dayman 9mo ago
what a unfortunate name!
ath3nd 9mo ago
[dead]
ed 9mo ago
A bit OT but why is moltbot so much more popular than the many personal agents that have been around for a while?
- olivia-banks 9mo ago
  The only context I've heard about it has been when the Mac Mini clusters associated with it were brought up. Perhaps it's the imagery of that.
  - elemdos 9mo ago
    Yeah makes sense. Something about giving an agent its own physical computer and being able to text it instructions like a personal assistant just clicks more than “run an agent in a sandbox”.
  - xnx 9mo ago
    Yes. People are really hung up on personifying or embodying agents: Rabbit M1, etc. The hype is incandescent right now but Clawdbot/Moltbot will be largely forgotten in 2 months.
- thehamkercat 9mo ago
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  - klohto 9mo ago
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      - klohto 9mo ago
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pawelduda 9mo ago
It sounds nice at a first glance, but how useful is it actually? Anyone got real, non-hypothetical use cases that outweigh the risks?
- ainiriand 9mo ago
  My experience. I have it running on my desktop with voice to text with an API token from groq, so I communicate with it in WhatsApp audios. I Have app codes for my Fastmail and because it has file access can optimize my Obsidian notes. I have it send me a morning brief with my notes, appointments and latest emails. And of course I have it speaking like I am some middle age Castillian Lord.
  - harmoni-pet 9mo ago
    How is that adding value to your life or productivity in any way? You just like working via text message instead of using a terminal? I don't get it. What do you do when it goes off the rails and starts making mistakes?
    - ainiriand 9mo ago
      I tell him: Summarize this article for me, and generate a note in Obsidian with the insights. Create a shopping list with these items, remind me tomorrow to call someone... Standard PA stuff. It never went off the rails yet.
- simianwords 9mo ago
  Here's an actual idea. With this, I can realistically use my apple watch as a _standalone_ device to do pretty much everything I need. This means I can switch off my iphone, keep use my apple watch as a kind of remote to my laptop. I can chat with my friends (not possible right now with whatsapp!), do some shopping, write some code, even read books! This is just not possible now using an apple watch.
  - ethansinjin 9mo ago
VadimPR 9mo ago
Is the app legitimate though? A few of these apps that deal with LLMs seem too good to be true and end up asking for suspiciously powerful API tokens in my experience (looking at Happy Coder).
- runjake 9mo ago
  It's legitimate, but its also extremely powerful and people tend to run it in very insecure ways or ways where their computer is wiped. Numerous examples and stories on X. I used it for a bit, but it burned through tokens (even after the token fix) and it uses tokens for stuff that could be handled by if/then statements and APIs without burning a ton of tokens. But it's a very neat and imperfect glimpse at the future.
  - Veen 9mo ago
    They've recently added "lobster" which is an extension for deterministic workflows outside of the LLM, at least partially solving that problem. Also fixed a context caching bug that resulted in it using far more Anthropic tokens than it should have.
  - chrisjj 9mo ago
    > It's legitimate How do you know? > it burned through tokens (even after the token fix) and it uses tokens for stuff that could be handled by if/then statements and APIs without burning a ton of tokens. Sponsored by the token seller, perhaps?
    - runjake 9mo ago
      > How do you know? I looked at the code and have followed Peter, it's developer, for a long time and he has a good reputation? > Sponsored by the token seller, perhaps? I don't know what this means. Peter wasn't sponsored at the time, but he may or may not have some sort of arrangement with Minimax now. I have no clue.
simonw 9mo ago
This project terrifies me. On the one hand it really is very cool, and a lot of people are reporting great results using it. It helped someone negotiate with car dealers to buy a car! https://aaronstuyvenberg.com/posts/clawd-bought-a-car https://aaronstuyvenberg.com/posts/clawd-bought-a-car But it's an absolute perfect storm for prompt injection and lethal trifecta attacks: https://simonwillison.net/2025/Jun/16/the-lethal-trifecta/ https://simonwillison.net/2025/Jun/16/the-lethal-trifecta/ People are hooking this thing up to Telegram and their private notes and their Gmail and letting it loose. I cannot see any way that doesn't end badly. I'm seeing a bunch of people buy a separate Mac Mini to run this on, under the idea that this will at least stop it from destroying their main machine. That's fine... but then they hook that new Mac Mini up to their Gmail and iMessage accounts, at which point they've opened up a bunch of critical data. This is classic Normalization of Deviance: https://embracethered.com/blog/posts/2025/the-normalization-of-deviance-in-ai/ https://embracethered.com/blog/posts/2025/the-normalization-... - every time someone gets away with running this kind of unsafe system without having their data stolen they'll become more confident that it's OK to keep on using it like this. Here's Sam Altman in yesterday's OpenAI Town Hall admitting that he runs Codex in YOLO mode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wpxv-8nG8ec&t=2330s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wpxv-8nG8ec&t=2330s And that will work out fine... until it doesn't. (I should note that I've been predicting a headline-grabbing prompt injection attack in the next six months every six months for over two years now and it still hasn't happened.) Update: here's a report of someone uploading a "skill" to the https://clawdhub.com/ https://clawdhub.com/ shared skills marketplace that demonstrates (but thankfully does not abuse) remote code execution on anyone who installed it: https://twitter.com/theonejvo/status/2015892980851474595 https://twitter.com/theonejvo/status/2015892980851474595 / https://xcancel.com/theonejvo/status/2015892980851474595 https://xcancel.com/theonejvo/status/2015892980851474595
- cowpig 9mo ago
  I find it completely crazy. If I wanted to launch a cyberattack on the western economy, I guess I would just need to: * open-source a vulnerable vibe-coded assistant * launch a viral marketing campaign with the help of some sophisticated crypto investors * watch as hundreds of thousands of people in the western world voluntarily hand over their information infrastructure to me
realty_geek 9mo ago
Oh dear, I bought claudeception.com on a whim - hope that doesn't upset anyone. I had some ideas on what to host on there but haven't got round to it yet. If anyone here has a good use for it feel free to pitch me...
- direwolf20 9mo ago
  You can still make a list of all the times Claude was confidently incorrect.
  - bigfishrunning 9mo ago
    The bandwidth requirements of that site would be very expensive
    - direwolf20 9mo ago
      Bandwidth for text is cheap. Don't use cloud. You could register cloudeception as well and have it tell you how much cloud bandwidth costs are daylight robbery.
      - owebmaster 9mo ago
        Cloudeception.com
  - realty_geek 9mo ago
    ha ha - that is actually quite a good idea ;)
- JKCalhoun 9mo ago
  "clau deception" might be a problem.
sergiotapia 9mo ago
crypto rug pullers in shambles hehe
low_tech_punk 9mo ago
When I visit https://www.molt.bot/ https://www.molt.bot/ with Edge browser, there is a bloody red screen screaming malware. What's wrong with the name?
- nvr219 9mo ago
  Probably very new domain reg
jasonjmcghee 9mo ago
I’m out of the loop clearly on what clawdbot/moltbot offers (haven’t used it)- I’d love a first hand explanation from users for why you think it has 70k stars. I’ve never seen a repo explode that much.
- ronsor 9mo ago
  Apparently it's like Claude Code but for everything. One can imagine the prompt injection horrors possible with this.
  - nvr219 9mo ago
    :allears:
- bparsons 9mo ago
  Tried it out last night. It combines dozens of tools together in a way that is likely to be a favourite platform for astroturfers/scammers. The ease of use is a big step toward the Dead Internet. That said, the software is truly impressive to this layperson.
- dr_dshiv 9mo ago
  It was a pain to set up, since I wanted it to use my oauth instead of api tokens. I think it is popular because many people don't know about claude code and it allows for integrations with telegram and whatsapp. Mac mini's let it run continuously -- although why not use a $5/m hetzner? It wasn't really supported, but I finally got it to use gemini voice. Internet is random sometimes.
- jimjimjim 9mo ago
  Since there is a market for 5staring or 1staring reviews on review websites, there is probably a market to not-quite-human staring of github projects.
- _23sd 9mo ago
  I think a major factor in the hype is that it's especially useful to the kind of people with a megaphone: bloggers, freelance journalists, people with big social media accounts, youtubers, etc. A lot of project management and IFTTT-like automation type software gets discussed out of proportion to how niche it is for the same reason. Just something to keep in mind, I don't think it's some crypto conspiracy just a mismatch between the experiences of freelance writers vs everyone else. While the popular thing when discussing the appeal of Clawdbot is to mention the lack of guardrails, personally I don't think that's very differentiating, every coding agent program has a command line flag to turn off the guardrails already and everyone knows that turning off the guardrails makes the agents extremely capable. Based on using it lightly for a couple of days on a spare PC, the actual nice thing about Clawdbot is that every agent you create is automatically set up with a workspace containing plain text files for personalization, memories, a skills folder, and whatever folders you or the agents want to add. Everything being a plain text/markdown file makes managing multiple types of agents much more intuitive than other programs I've used which are mainly designed around having a "regular" agent which has all your configured system prompts and skills, and then hyperspecialized "task" agents which are meant to have a smaller system prompt, no persistent anything, and more JSON-heavy configuration. Your setup is easy to grok (in the original sense) and changing the model backend is just one command rather than porting everything to a different CLI tool. Still, it does very much feel like using a vibe coded application and I suspect that for me, the advantages are going to be too small to put up with running a server that feels duct taped together. But I can definitely see the appeal for people who want to create tons of automations. It comes with a very good structure for multiple types of jobs (regular cron jobs, "heartbeat" jobs for delivering reminders and email summaries while having the context of your main assistant thread, and "lobster" jobs that have a framework for approval workflows), all with the capability to create and use persistent memories, and the flexibility to describe what you need and watch the agent build the perfect automation for it is something I don't think any similar local or cloud-based assistant can do without a lot of heavier customization.
ChrisArchitect 9mo ago
Related: Clawdbot - open source personal AI assistant https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46760237 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46760237
hombre_fatal 9mo ago
A pun or homophone (Clawd) on the product you're targeting (Claude) is one of the worst naming memes in tech. It was horrid to begin with. Just imagine trying to talk about Clawd and Claude in the same verbal convo. Even something like "Fuckleglut" would be better.
smeej 9mo ago
When I first saw this, my thought was, "Wow, I'm surprised Anthropic hasn't pushed back on their calling it that. They must not know about it yet." Glad to know my own internal prediction engine still works.
- racl101 9mo ago
  Shoulda gone for Clodbought more subversive
- jug 9mo ago
  Surprised they didn't just try Clawbot first. I can see the case against "Clawd" (I mean; seriously...) but claws are a different matter IMHO, with that mascot and all.
  - SyneRyder 9mo ago
    It's probably still a bit too close. "Claw'd" might actually be a trademark of Anthropic now. The character and name originates from this Claude Sonnet 3.5 advertisement in June 2024, promoting the launch of the Artifacts feature by building an 8-bit game https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHqk0ZGb6qo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHqk0ZGb6qo "Have the crab jump up and over oncoming seashells... I think I want to name this crab... Claw'd." Also, if you haven't found it hidden in Claude Code yet, there's a secret way to buy Clawd merch from Anthropic. Still waiting on them to make a Clawd plushie, though.
- buu700 9mo ago
  I called this outcome the second I saw the title of the post the other day. Granted, I have some experience in that area, as someone who once upon a time had the brilliant idea to launch a product on HN called "Napster.fm".
jeffwask 9mo ago
Coincidence? Article calling it a pump and dump earlier today. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46780065 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46780065
- adastra22 9mo ago
  Pump and dump of what?
  - jeffwask 9mo ago
    Try reading the article
    - adastra22 9mo ago
      I did. The creator of Clawdbot/Moltbot/OpenClaw has nothing at all to do with the crypto grifts going on.
d4rkp4ttern 9mo ago
I almost thought it was MalBot, which would have been more apt.
vivzkestrel 9mo ago
- out of the loop here, what is this clawdbot and who is generating hype for this? and why?
lifetimerubyist 9mo ago
This thing stores all your API keys in plain text in its config directory. It reads untrusted data like emails. This thing is a security nightmare.
jbrooks84 9mo ago
Crypto boy ai pig slop
pnathan 9mo ago
I'm looking forward to when I can run a tolerably useful model locally. Next time I buy a desktop one of its core purposes will be to run models for 24/7 work.
- prettyblocks 9mo ago
  Define useful I guess. I think the agentic coding loop we can achieve with hosted frontier models today is a really long way away from consumer desktops for now.
esquivalience 9mo ago
According to the README, Anthropic itself is one of the contributors to this project.
- har2008preet 9mo ago
  That might be because someone has committed directly using claude code
theyneverlear 9mo ago
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JasonKui 9mo ago
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rizzo94 9mo ago
I had a similar journey with Moltbot/OpenClaw. I spent a lot of time self-hosting and wiring things together reverse proxies, gateways, credentials, hardware decisions (Mac mini vs VPS vs mini-PC), and honestly the operational surface area gets large very quickly. While researching ways to reduce that complexity, I came across PAIO. What stood out to me wasn’t just the convenience, but the architecture choices. The integration was basically one-click compared to the multi-step setup I had before, but the bigger win was BYOK and the privacy-first approach. With self-hosted assistants, the tooling is powerful but the security model is often an afterthought, and it’s easy to accidentally expose something (as people in this thread pointed out with Shodan results). A managed layer that still keeps keys and data under your control feels like a reasonable middle ground between full DIY and full SaaS. I still like self-hosting for learning and control, but for day-to-day reliability and security, having a platform that bakes in isolation and privacy primitives saves a lot of operational burden.

249 points by philip1209 9mo ago

As a result of this the official install is now installing a squatted package they don't control: https://github.com/moltbot/moltbot/issues/2760 https://github.com/moltbot/moltbot/issues/2760 https://github.com/moltbot/moltbot/issues/2775 https://github.com/moltbot/moltbot/issues/2775 But this is basically in line with average LLM agent safety.

no-name-here 9mo ago
It's even worse than I guessed - moltbot updated their official docs to install the new package name ( https://github.com/moltbot/moltbot?tab=readme-ov-file#install-recommended https://github.com/moltbot/moltbot?tab=readme-ov-file#instal... ), but it was a package name they have not obtained, and a different non-clawdbot 'moltbot' package is there. It's been 15 hours since that "CRITICAL" issue bug was opened, and moltbot has had dozens of commits ( https://github.com/moltbot/moltbot/commits/main/ https://github.com/moltbot/moltbot/commits/main/ ), but not to fix or take down the official install instructions that continue to have people install a 'moltbot' package that is not theirs.

janpio 9mo ago

Motivation for rename: https://x.com/moltbot/status/2016058924403753024 https://x.com/moltbot/status/2016058924403753024 https://xcancel.com/moltbot/status/2016058924403753024 https://xcancel.com/moltbot/status/2016058924403753024

ludwigvan 9mo ago
Seems like an official ClaudeBot from Anthropic is in the works, then?
- dewey 9mo ago
  After Claude Cowork etc. that doesn't really sound like a surprise.
- jsheard 9mo ago
  They already use the name ClaudeBot for their web crawler: https://support.claude.com/en/articles/8896518-does-anthropic-crawl-data-from-the-web-and-how-can-site-owners-block-the-crawler https://support.claude.com/en/articles/8896518-does-anthropi...
_--__--__ 9mo ago
>and honestly? "Molt" fits perfectly - it's what lobsters do to grow. So do we think Anthropic or the artist formerly known as Clawdbot paid for the tokens to have Claude write this tweet announcing the rename of a Product That Is Definitely Not Claude?

achillean 9mo ago

Already seeing some of the new Moltbot deployments exposed to the Internet: https://www.shodan.io/search/report?query=http.favicon.hash%3A-805544463%20http https://www.shodan.io/search/report?query=http.favicon.hash%...

rahimnathwani 9mo ago
Maybe those folks buying Mac Minis to host at home weren't so silly after all. The exposed ones are almost all hosted on VPSs which, by design, have publicly-routable IP addresses. But anyway I think connecting to a Clawdbot instance requires pairing unless you're coming from localhost: https://docs.molt.bot/start/pairing https://docs.molt.bot/start/pairing
- paxys 9mo ago
  The silly part is buying a $600 Mac mini when any $100 NUC or $50 raspberry pi or any cheap mini PC off of eBay will do the job exactly the same.
  - rahimnathwani 9mo ago
    If you want iMessage you still need an always-on Mac, whether that's the main moltbot gateway, or the MacOS app running in 'node mode' to allow a moltbot gateway to use it to send/receive iMessages.
    - Fnoord 9mo ago
      > need an always-on Mac Not really, you can emulate macOS on any Linux/x86-64. But it is actually a good point to get a Mac Mini instead of a NUC. The Mac Mini is going to deliver better performance per Watt.
      - aschobel 9mo ago
        Can you really register iMessage on an emulated MacOS these days? I'd love to learn more, the AIs I asked say it doesn't seem possible in VMs anymore.

marcd35 9mo ago

something about giving full read write access to every file on my PC and internet message interface just rubs me the wrong way. some unscrupulous actors are probably chomping at the bit looking for vulnerabilities to get carte blanche unrestricted access. be safe out there kiddos

spondyl 9mo ago
This would seem to be inline with the development philosophy for clawdbot. I like the concept but I was put off by the lack of concern around security, specifically for something that interfaces with the internet > These days I don’t read much code anymore. I watch the stream and sometimes look at key parts, but I gotta be honest - most code I don’t read. I think it's fine for your own side projects not meant for others but Clawdbot is, to some degree, packaged for others to use it seems. https://steipete.me/posts/2025/shipping-at-inference-speed https://steipete.me/posts/2025/shipping-at-inference-speed
cobolcomesback 9mo ago
At minimum this thing should be installed in its own VM. I shudder to think of people running this on their personal machine… I’ve been toying around with it and the only credentials I’m giving it are specifically scoped down and/or are new user accounts created specifically for this thing to use. I don’t trust this thing at all with my own personal GitHub credentials or anything that’s even remotely touching my credit cards.
OGEnthusiast 9mo ago
That's almost 100% likely to have already happened without anyone even noticing. I doubt many of these people are monitoring their Moltbot/Clawdbot logs to even notice a remote prompt or a prompt injection attack that siphons up all their email.
AlexCoventry 9mo ago
Yeah, this new trend of handing over all your keys to an AI and letting it rip looks like a horrific security nightmare, to me. I get that they're powerful tools, but they still have serious prompt-injection vulnerabilities. Not to mention that you're giving your model provider de facto access to your entire life and recorded thoughts. Sam Altman was also recently encouraging people to give OpenAI models full access to their computing resources.

tcdent 9mo ago

Could have just called it "clawbot" and maintained some of the hype while eliminating the IP concerns. Instead they chose a completely different name with unrecognizable resonance.

stingraycharles 9mo ago
I think it’s fine, they found a way to frame it over a lobster’s lifecycle. Plenty of worse renames of businesses have happened in the past that ended up being fine, I’m sure this one will go over as such as well.
ketanhwr 9mo ago
Apparently "clawbot" wasn't allowed either: https://x.com/steipete/status/2016091353365537247 https://x.com/steipete/status/2016091353365537247
- direwolf20 9mo ago
  A cease and desist doesn't mean you have to stop doing everything it says. It only means you should comply with the law.
  - xuki 9mo ago
    You don't want to spend time and money to fight with a $350B company.
    - direwolf20 9mo ago
      If that's your logic they can make you do anything they like. They can ask you for $100m "because I said so" and you'll comply to avoid spending $200m on lawyers.
      - kube-system 9mo ago
        Usually it doesn't take $200m to prove that "because I said so" isn't a valid claim of damages. But otherwise, you've got the math right. Settling is typically advised when the cost to litigate is expected to be more than the cost to settle.

putlake 9mo ago

The way trademarks work is that if you don't actively defend them you weaken your rights. So Anthropic needs to defend their ownership of "Claude". I'm guessing they reached out to Peter Steinberger and asked nicely that he rename Clawdbot.

mattmaroon 9mo ago
Last year in my area, a food truck decided to call itself Leggo My Egg Roll, and obvious play on Eggo waffles tagline. Kellogg sent them a cease and desist, they decided to ignore it. Kellogg then offered to pay them to rebrand, they still wouldn’t. They then sued for $15 million.
- clarkmoody 9mo ago
  ...and then what happened?
  - Barbing 9mo ago
    Good question https://local12.com/news/nation-world/kellogg-leggo-my-eggroll-says-it-had-no-other-choice-but-to-file-lawsuit-against-an-ohio-food-truck-cincinnati-consumer-court-cases-copyright-tagline-slogan-marketing-federal-northern-district-trademark-infringement-offer-request-threats-demands-material https://local12.com/news/nation-world/kellogg-leggo-my-eggro...
    - z2 9mo ago
      Could they have gotten around this by actually serving Eggo waffles? Would that have then fallen under nominative fair use?
      - mattmaroon 9mo ago
        I doubt it, no. I couldn’t go buy Taco Bell sauce at the store, serve it at my restaurant, and call my restaurant Taco Bell. They could probably mention it on their menu.

dcre 9mo ago

Hard to think of a worse name. Maybe Moistbot?

shrubble 9mo ago

Ogden Nash has his poem about canaries: "The song of canaries Never varies, And when they're moulting They're pretty revolting." Wondering if Moltbot is related to the poem, humorously.

djmips 9mo ago
I believe it's more about molting lobsters. Clawdbot used a lobster mascot or something.

0dayman 9mo ago

what a unfortunate name!

ath3nd 9mo ago

[dead]

ed 9mo ago

A bit OT but why is moltbot so much more popular than the many personal agents that have been around for a while?

olivia-banks 9mo ago
The only context I've heard about it has been when the Mac Mini clusters associated with it were brought up. Perhaps it's the imagery of that.
- elemdos 9mo ago
  Yeah makes sense. Something about giving an agent its own physical computer and being able to text it instructions like a personal assistant just clicks more than “run an agent in a sandbox”.
- xnx 9mo ago
  Yes. People are really hung up on personifying or embodying agents: Rabbit M1, etc. The hype is incandescent right now but Clawdbot/Moltbot will be largely forgotten in 2 months.
thehamkercat 9mo ago
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- klohto 9mo ago
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      [flagged]

pawelduda 9mo ago

It sounds nice at a first glance, but how useful is it actually? Anyone got real, non-hypothetical use cases that outweigh the risks?

ainiriand 9mo ago
My experience. I have it running on my desktop with voice to text with an API token from groq, so I communicate with it in WhatsApp audios. I Have app codes for my Fastmail and because it has file access can optimize my Obsidian notes. I have it send me a morning brief with my notes, appointments and latest emails. And of course I have it speaking like I am some middle age Castillian Lord.
- harmoni-pet 9mo ago
  How is that adding value to your life or productivity in any way? You just like working via text message instead of using a terminal? I don't get it. What do you do when it goes off the rails and starts making mistakes?
  - ainiriand 9mo ago
    I tell him: Summarize this article for me, and generate a note in Obsidian with the insights. Create a shopping list with these items, remind me tomorrow to call someone... Standard PA stuff. It never went off the rails yet.
simianwords 9mo ago
Here's an actual idea. With this, I can realistically use my apple watch as a _standalone_ device to do pretty much everything I need. This means I can switch off my iphone, keep use my apple watch as a kind of remote to my laptop. I can chat with my friends (not possible right now with whatsapp!), do some shopping, write some code, even read books! This is just not possible now using an apple watch.
- ethansinjin 9mo ago

VadimPR 9mo ago

Is the app legitimate though? A few of these apps that deal with LLMs seem too good to be true and end up asking for suspiciously powerful API tokens in my experience (looking at Happy Coder).

runjake 9mo ago
It's legitimate, but its also extremely powerful and people tend to run it in very insecure ways or ways where their computer is wiped. Numerous examples and stories on X. I used it for a bit, but it burned through tokens (even after the token fix) and it uses tokens for stuff that could be handled by if/then statements and APIs without burning a ton of tokens. But it's a very neat and imperfect glimpse at the future.
- Veen 9mo ago
  They've recently added "lobster" which is an extension for deterministic workflows outside of the LLM, at least partially solving that problem. Also fixed a context caching bug that resulted in it using far more Anthropic tokens than it should have.
- chrisjj 9mo ago
  > It's legitimate How do you know? > it burned through tokens (even after the token fix) and it uses tokens for stuff that could be handled by if/then statements and APIs without burning a ton of tokens. Sponsored by the token seller, perhaps?
  - runjake 9mo ago
    > How do you know? I looked at the code and have followed Peter, it's developer, for a long time and he has a good reputation? > Sponsored by the token seller, perhaps? I don't know what this means. Peter wasn't sponsored at the time, but he may or may not have some sort of arrangement with Minimax now. I have no clue.

simonw 9mo ago

This project terrifies me. On the one hand it really is very cool, and a lot of people are reporting great results using it. It helped someone negotiate with car dealers to buy a car! https://aaronstuyvenberg.com/posts/clawd-bought-a-car https://aaronstuyvenberg.com/posts/clawd-bought-a-car But it's an absolute perfect storm for prompt injection and lethal trifecta attacks: https://simonwillison.net/2025/Jun/16/the-lethal-trifecta/ https://simonwillison.net/2025/Jun/16/the-lethal-trifecta/ People are hooking this thing up to Telegram and their private notes and their Gmail and letting it loose. I cannot see any way that doesn't end badly. I'm seeing a bunch of people buy a separate Mac Mini to run this on, under the idea that this will at least stop it from destroying their main machine. That's fine... but then they hook that new Mac Mini up to their Gmail and iMessage accounts, at which point they've opened up a bunch of critical data. This is classic Normalization of Deviance: https://embracethered.com/blog/posts/2025/the-normalization-of-deviance-in-ai/ https://embracethered.com/blog/posts/2025/the-normalization-... - every time someone gets away with running this kind of unsafe system without having their data stolen they'll become more confident that it's OK to keep on using it like this. Here's Sam Altman in yesterday's OpenAI Town Hall admitting that he runs Codex in YOLO mode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wpxv-8nG8ec&t=2330s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wpxv-8nG8ec&t=2330s And that will work out fine... until it doesn't. (I should note that I've been predicting a headline-grabbing prompt injection attack in the next six months every six months for over two years now and it still hasn't happened.) Update: here's a report of someone uploading a "skill" to the https://clawdhub.com/ https://clawdhub.com/ shared skills marketplace that demonstrates (but thankfully does not abuse) remote code execution on anyone who installed it: https://twitter.com/theonejvo/status/2015892980851474595 https://twitter.com/theonejvo/status/2015892980851474595 / https://xcancel.com/theonejvo/status/2015892980851474595 https://xcancel.com/theonejvo/status/2015892980851474595

cowpig 9mo ago
I find it completely crazy. If I wanted to launch a cyberattack on the western economy, I guess I would just need to: * open-source a vulnerable vibe-coded assistant * launch a viral marketing campaign with the help of some sophisticated crypto investors * watch as hundreds of thousands of people in the western world voluntarily hand over their information infrastructure to me

realty_geek 9mo ago

Oh dear, I bought claudeception.com on a whim - hope that doesn't upset anyone. I had some ideas on what to host on there but haven't got round to it yet. If anyone here has a good use for it feel free to pitch me...

direwolf20 9mo ago
You can still make a list of all the times Claude was confidently incorrect.
- bigfishrunning 9mo ago
  The bandwidth requirements of that site would be very expensive
  - direwolf20 9mo ago
    Bandwidth for text is cheap. Don't use cloud. You could register cloudeception as well and have it tell you how much cloud bandwidth costs are daylight robbery.
    - owebmaster 9mo ago
      Cloudeception.com
- realty_geek 9mo ago
  ha ha - that is actually quite a good idea ;)
JKCalhoun 9mo ago
"clau deception" might be a problem.

sergiotapia 9mo ago

crypto rug pullers in shambles hehe

low_tech_punk 9mo ago

When I visit https://www.molt.bot/ https://www.molt.bot/ with Edge browser, there is a bloody red screen screaming malware. What's wrong with the name?

nvr219 9mo ago
Probably very new domain reg

jasonjmcghee 9mo ago

I’m out of the loop clearly on what clawdbot/moltbot offers (haven’t used it)- I’d love a first hand explanation from users for why you think it has 70k stars. I’ve never seen a repo explode that much.

ronsor 9mo ago
Apparently it's like Claude Code but for everything. One can imagine the prompt injection horrors possible with this.
- nvr219 9mo ago
  :allears:
bparsons 9mo ago
Tried it out last night. It combines dozens of tools together in a way that is likely to be a favourite platform for astroturfers/scammers. The ease of use is a big step toward the Dead Internet. That said, the software is truly impressive to this layperson.
dr_dshiv 9mo ago
It was a pain to set up, since I wanted it to use my oauth instead of api tokens. I think it is popular because many people don't know about claude code and it allows for integrations with telegram and whatsapp. Mac mini's let it run continuously -- although why not use a $5/m hetzner? It wasn't really supported, but I finally got it to use gemini voice. Internet is random sometimes.
jimjimjim 9mo ago
Since there is a market for 5staring or 1staring reviews on review websites, there is probably a market to not-quite-human staring of github projects.
_23sd 9mo ago
I think a major factor in the hype is that it's especially useful to the kind of people with a megaphone: bloggers, freelance journalists, people with big social media accounts, youtubers, etc. A lot of project management and IFTTT-like automation type software gets discussed out of proportion to how niche it is for the same reason. Just something to keep in mind, I don't think it's some crypto conspiracy just a mismatch between the experiences of freelance writers vs everyone else. While the popular thing when discussing the appeal of Clawdbot is to mention the lack of guardrails, personally I don't think that's very differentiating, every coding agent program has a command line flag to turn off the guardrails already and everyone knows that turning off the guardrails makes the agents extremely capable. Based on using it lightly for a couple of days on a spare PC, the actual nice thing about Clawdbot is that every agent you create is automatically set up with a workspace containing plain text files for personalization, memories, a skills folder, and whatever folders you or the agents want to add. Everything being a plain text/markdown file makes managing multiple types of agents much more intuitive than other programs I've used which are mainly designed around having a "regular" agent which has all your configured system prompts and skills, and then hyperspecialized "task" agents which are meant to have a smaller system prompt, no persistent anything, and more JSON-heavy configuration. Your setup is easy to grok (in the original sense) and changing the model backend is just one command rather than porting everything to a different CLI tool. Still, it does very much feel like using a vibe coded application and I suspect that for me, the advantages are going to be too small to put up with running a server that feels duct taped together. But I can definitely see the appeal for people who want to create tons of automations. It comes with a very good structure for multiple types of jobs (regular cron jobs, "heartbeat" jobs for delivering reminders and email summaries while having the context of your main assistant thread, and "lobster" jobs that have a framework for approval workflows), all with the capability to create and use persistent memories, and the flexibility to describe what you need and watch the agent build the perfect automation for it is something I don't think any similar local or cloud-based assistant can do without a lot of heavier customization.

ChrisArchitect 9mo ago

Related: Clawdbot - open source personal AI assistant https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46760237 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46760237

hombre_fatal 9mo ago

A pun or homophone (Clawd) on the product you're targeting (Claude) is one of the worst naming memes in tech. It was horrid to begin with. Just imagine trying to talk about Clawd and Claude in the same verbal convo. Even something like "Fuckleglut" would be better.

smeej 9mo ago

When I first saw this, my thought was, "Wow, I'm surprised Anthropic hasn't pushed back on their calling it that. They must not know about it yet." Glad to know my own internal prediction engine still works.

racl101 9mo ago
Shoulda gone for Clodbought more subversive
jug 9mo ago
Surprised they didn't just try Clawbot first. I can see the case against "Clawd" (I mean; seriously...) but claws are a different matter IMHO, with that mascot and all.
- SyneRyder 9mo ago
  It's probably still a bit too close. "Claw'd" might actually be a trademark of Anthropic now. The character and name originates from this Claude Sonnet 3.5 advertisement in June 2024, promoting the launch of the Artifacts feature by building an 8-bit game https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHqk0ZGb6qo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHqk0ZGb6qo "Have the crab jump up and over oncoming seashells... I think I want to name this crab... Claw'd." Also, if you haven't found it hidden in Claude Code yet, there's a secret way to buy Clawd merch from Anthropic. Still waiting on them to make a Clawd plushie, though.
buu700 9mo ago
I called this outcome the second I saw the title of the post the other day. Granted, I have some experience in that area, as someone who once upon a time had the brilliant idea to launch a product on HN called "Napster.fm".

jeffwask 9mo ago

Coincidence? Article calling it a pump and dump earlier today. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46780065 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46780065

adastra22 9mo ago
Pump and dump of what?
- jeffwask 9mo ago
  Try reading the article
  - adastra22 9mo ago
    I did. The creator of Clawdbot/Moltbot/OpenClaw has nothing at all to do with the crypto grifts going on.

d4rkp4ttern 9mo ago

I almost thought it was MalBot, which would have been more apt.

vivzkestrel 9mo ago

- out of the loop here, what is this clawdbot and who is generating hype for this? and why?

lifetimerubyist 9mo ago

This thing stores all your API keys in plain text in its config directory. It reads untrusted data like emails. This thing is a security nightmare.

jbrooks84 9mo ago

Crypto boy ai pig slop

pnathan 9mo ago

I'm looking forward to when I can run a tolerably useful model locally. Next time I buy a desktop one of its core purposes will be to run models for 24/7 work.

prettyblocks 9mo ago
Define useful I guess. I think the agentic coding loop we can achieve with hosted frontier models today is a really long way away from consumer desktops for now.

esquivalience 9mo ago

According to the README, Anthropic itself is one of the contributors to this project.

har2008preet 9mo ago
That might be because someone has committed directly using claude code

theyneverlear 9mo ago

[dead]

JasonKui 9mo ago

[dead]

rizzo94 9mo ago

I had a similar journey with Moltbot/OpenClaw. I spent a lot of time self-hosting and wiring things together reverse proxies, gateways, credentials, hardware decisions (Mac mini vs VPS vs mini-PC), and honestly the operational surface area gets large very quickly. While researching ways to reduce that complexity, I came across PAIO. What stood out to me wasn’t just the convenience, but the architecture choices. The integration was basically one-click compared to the multi-step setup I had before, but the bigger win was BYOK and the privacy-first approach. With self-hosted assistants, the tooling is powerful but the security model is often an afterthought, and it’s easy to accidentally expose something (as people in this thread pointed out with Shodan results). A managed layer that still keeps keys and data under your control feels like a reasonable middle ground between full DIY and full SaaS. I still like self-hosting for learning and control, but for day-to-day reliability and security, having a platform that bakes in isolation and privacy primitives saves a lot of operational burden.