How to Deploy OpenClaw AI Agent on Ubuntu 24.04

OpenClaw is the most-starred project on GitHub — a free, open-source AI agent platform that runs on your own server and connects to Telegram, WhatsApp, Slack, Discord, and a dozen more messaging apps. Unlike cloud-based AI assistants, OpenClaw keeps your conversations and data entirely on your infrastructure. It's not a chatbot — it's an autonomous agent that manages calendars, browses the web, reads and writes files, runs terminal commands, and automates workflows through custom skills. In this tutorial, you'll deploy OpenClaw on an Ubuntu 24.04 VPS, wire it up to Anthropic Claude as the LLM provider, connect Telegram as your messaging channel, and set up a systemd daemon so it runs 24/7. Prerequisites An Ubuntu 24.04 VPS with at least 2 GB RAM SSH access to your server An Anthropic API key (or another supported LLM provider key) A Telegram account Cloud API vs Local Model There are two ways to run OpenClaw: Cloud API mode connects to a frontier model like Claude or GPT over the inter