OpenClaw on Your VPS Series
    Part 6 of 6

    Advanced Use Cases and Integrations

    Server monitoring, email pipelines, GitHub automation, Nextcloud integration, Tailscale networking, and multi-agent team configurations.

    35 minutes
    6 use cases

    Use Case 1: VPS Server Monitoring via Telegram

    Turn your OpenClaw into a monitoring agent that interrupts you in Telegram when something goes wrong.

    Install monitoring skills
    openclaw skills install system-health
    openclaw skills install docker-control
    Threshold-based alerting
    # Disk space alert: every 2 hours, alert if any partition over 85%
    openclaw cron add \
      --name "disk-alert" \
      --schedule "0 */2 * * *" \
      --agent personal-agent \
      --channel telegram \
      --prompt "Check disk usage. If any partition is above 85%, alert with partition name, usage, and top 5 directories. Otherwise stay silent."
    
    # Memory alert: every 30 minutes
    openclaw cron add \
      --name "memory-alert" \
      --schedule "*/30 * * * *" \
      --agent personal-agent \
      --channel telegram \
      --prompt "Check memory. If available is below 512 MB, alert with totals and top 5 processes. Otherwise stay silent."
    
    # Failed services: every 15 minutes
    openclaw cron add \
      --name "service-check" \
      --schedule "*/15 * * * *" \
      --agent personal-agent \
      --channel telegram \
      --prompt "Check for failed systemd services. If any have failed, list them with last 5 log lines each. Only alert on failures."

    Interactive Commands from Telegram

    • "What's the current load average?" — runs uptime
    • "Show me the top CPU processes" — runs top -bn1 | head -20
    • "How much space is left on /var?" — runs df -h /var
    • "Restart the Nginx container" — runs docker restart nginx

    Use Case 2: Email Management Pipeline

    Gmail skill setup
    openclaw skills install gmail
    openclaw skills gmail auth
    
    # Scope permissions carefully:
    # gmail.readonly, gmail.compose, gmail.modify
    # Only add gmail.send if you want autonomous sending
    Morning briefing
    openclaw cron add \
      --name "email-briefing" \
      --schedule "0 7 * * *" \
      --agent personal-agent \
      --channel telegram \
      --prompt "Review emails since yesterday 7 AM. Categorize: (1) Requires response today, (2) Read-only, (3) Archive. Draft replies for category 1, under 100 words each."
    Follow-up tracker
    openclaw cron add \
      --name "followup-check" \
      --schedule "0 16 * * 1-5" \
      --agent personal-agent \
      --channel telegram \
      --prompt "Search Sent folder for emails from the past 5 days without replies. List subject, recipient, and date. Exclude newsletters and CCs."

    Use Case 3: GitHub Workflow Automation

    GitHub skill setup
    openclaw skills install github
    openclaw skills github auth
    # Generate a PAT with scopes: repo, notifications, read:org
    Notification digest & PR triage
    # Daily GitHub digest
    openclaw cron add \
      --name "github-digest" \
      --schedule "0 9 * * 1-5" \
      --agent work-agent \
      --channel slack \
      --prompt "Check GitHub notifications from 24h. Group by repo, summarize PRs needing review, assigned issues, mentions. Include links."
    
    # Stale PR check
    openclaw cron add \
      --name "pr-stale-check" \
      --schedule "0 10 * * 1,3,5" \
      --agent work-agent \
      --channel slack \
      --prompt "Check all open PRs. Flag any open >7 days with no activity, merge conflicts, or failing CI."

    Interactive queries: "Create an issue titled 'Fix pagination bug'", "List open issues tagged 'help wanted'", "Summarize the last 10 commits to main".

    Use Case 4: Nextcloud Integration

    WebDAV setup
    openclaw skills install webdav
    openclaw skills install ical-calendar
    
    openclaw skills webdav configure \
      --base-url "https://nextcloud.yourdomain.com/remote.php/dav/files/username/" \
      --username "your-nextcloud-username" \
      --password "your-app-password"

    Use cases: meeting notes capture to Markdown files, document search across WebDAV, file-based activity reports ("What files in Projects/ClientName were modified this week?").

    Use Case 5: Tailscale Private Networking

    The highest-security deployment: no public ports except SSH, everything runs on the Tailscale network.

    Install and configure
    # Install Tailscale
    curl -fsSL https://tailscale.com/install.sh | sh
    sudo tailscale up --authkey tskey-auth-your-key-here
    
    # Expose Control UI on Tailnet only
    tailscale serve https:443 / proxy http://127.0.0.1:18789

    Your Control UI is now at https://your-machine-name.your-tailnet.ts.net — accessible only from Tailnet devices, with no public exposure.

    Optional: Restrict Nginx to Tailscale
    server {
        listen 443 ssl;
        server_name agent.yourdomain.com;
        
        # Only allow Tailscale IP range
        allow 100.64.0.0/10;
        deny all;
        
        # ... rest of proxy config
    }

    Use Case 6: Multi-Agent Team Configuration

    Create team agents
    # Developer agent
    openclaw agents create \
      --name "dev-agent" \
      --system-prompt "Technical assistant for development. Access to GitHub, shell, Docker." \
      --model anthropic/claude-opus-4-5 \
      --skills "github,shell,docker-control,web-search"
    
    # Operations agent
    openclaw agents create \
      --name "ops-agent" \
      --system-prompt "Operations assistant. Focus on system health and incident response." \
      --model anthropic/claude-sonnet-4-5 \
      --skills "system-health,docker-control,shell"
    
    # Content agent (no infrastructure access)
    openclaw agents create \
      --name "content-agent" \
      --system-prompt "Content and marketing assistant. Writing, research, planning." \
      --model anthropic/claude-sonnet-4-5 \
      --skills "web-search,browser,notion,gmail"
    Route channels to agents
    # Route Slack channels to specific agents
    openclaw channels slack set-channel-agent --channel-id DEV_CHANNEL_ID --agent dev-agent
    openclaw channels slack set-channel-agent --channel-id OPS_CHANNEL_ID --agent ops-agent

    Keeping OpenClaw Updated

    Update workflow
    # Check current version
    openclaw --version
    
    # Update
    npm update -g openclaw
    
    # Restart after updating
    openclaw gateway restart

    Check the CHANGELOG before updating — skill API changes occasionally require configuration updates. Test on staging first if running critical automations.

    Production Maintenance Checklist

    Weekly and monthly tasks
    # Weekly
    openclaw doctor
    openclaw skills log --outbound --since "7 days ago" | grep -v known-domains
    npm outdated -g openclaw
    
    # Monthly
    openclaw agents memory --prune --older-than 30d
    ls -la ~/.openclaw/credentials/
    sudo fail2ban-client status sshd
    certbot renew --dry-run

    🎉 Series Complete

    You now have a VPS running OpenClaw with a hardened Ubuntu server, persistent Gateway, multiple messaging channels, a configured LLM, curated skills, scheduled automations, webhook integrations, and optional Tailscale networking. Total ongoing cost: your VPS plan plus LLM API usage — typically $10-25/month for personal use.