OpenClaw + GitHub = Your Own AI Developer

I had OpenClaw read through my PraisonAI repo, suggest a feature, implement it, and open a pull request — all from a chat window. No IDE, no manual git commands, no copy-pasting code between tools. Just a conversation with my repo. https://kilo.ai/kiloclaw OpenClaw on its own is powerful, but it can't do much until you connect it to where your code actually lives. For most of us, that's GitHub. Once the two are wired up, OpenClaw can read your repo, understand the structure, suggest improvements, write the code, push a branch, and open a pull request for you to review and merge. You stay in control — nothing goes to main without your approval — but all the repetitive work in between disappears. In this video I walk through the full setup end-to-end so you can do the same on your own repo. Three simple steps: set up OpenClaw, configure GitHub, then connect them together. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ STEP 1 — SET UP OPENCLAW WITH KILOCLAW ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Self-hosting OpenClaw on your own server means dealing with 24/7 uptime, networking, and config files. KiloClaw removes all of that — it's a managed OpenClaw you can provision in a few minutes. • Sign up at Kilo.ai and open the dashboard • Click Get Started and give your bot an identity (I named mine "Praisen Claw") • Allow the default permissions and continue • Connect a channel — Telegram, Slack, or email. For Telegram, generate a bot token from BotFather and paste it in • Provision your instance Once it's live, click the chat icon to open your OpenClaw interface and send a test message to confirm it's working. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ STEP 2 — CONFIGURE GITHUB (GENERATE A PAT) ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ OpenClaw needs a personal access token to act on your behalf. We're using a fine-grained token so you can scope it to exactly one repo and exactly the permissions it needs. • Go to GitHub → Settings → Developer settings → Personal access tokens → Fine-grained tokens • Click Generate new token and name it "OpenClaw" • Set expiration to 30 days (or whatever you're comfortable with) • Under Repository access, select "Only select repositories" and pick the one repo you want OpenClaw to work on • Set these repository permissions to Read and write: - Contents (so it can modify files) - Issues (so it can create issues) - Pull requests (so it can open PRs) - Commit statuses (read access) • Click Generate token and copy the token immediately — you won't see it again ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ STEP 3 — CONNECT OPENCLAW TO GITHUB ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Two options here depending on whether you're using KiloClaw or a self-hosted setup. Option A — KiloClaw dashboard (easy): • Open the GitHub integration panel • Enter your GitHub username • Enter the email tied to your GitHub account • Paste the PAT you just generated • Save and redeploy when prompted Option B — Self-hosted OpenClaw (manual): • Open OpenClaw Control Panel → Config → Environment • Add your GitHub username • Add your GitHub email • Add your PAT • Save and apply ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE IN PRACTICE ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ I asked OpenClaw: "Do you have access to MervinPraison/PraisonAI?" It confirmed admin-level read/write access. Then I asked it to review the repo and suggest a feature. It read through the structure and proposed a centralized capability registry. I replied: "Implement the above feature and create a pull request." It went through the relevant files, made the changes, pushed a branch, and opened a PR — all while I waited. When I asked for a status update, it sent me the PR link. I opened it, reviewed the file changes, and merged to main. That's the whole loop. The same conversation works through Telegram, Slack, or email if you don't want to sit in the chat UI. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ WHY THIS MATTERS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Most "AI coding" tools still expect you to drive — open the IDE, prompt the model, review inline, commit yourself. This setup flips that: you describe what you want in plain English from anywhere (desktop, phone, Telegram), and the work arrives as a reviewable pull request. You're still the one merging, so quality stays in your hands, but the busywork is gone. Thanks to Kilo.ai for sponsoring this video. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ TIMESTAMPS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 0:00 What we're building 0:41 Why GitHub integration matters 1:10 Step 1 — Set up OpenClaw with KiloClaw 1:51 Connecting Telegram via BotFather 2:28 Step 2 — Creating a fine-grained GitHub PAT 3:20 Step 3 — Connecting OpenClaw to GitHub 4:05 Asking OpenClaw to audit the repo 4:41 Implementing a feature as a pull request 5:10 Reviewing and merging the PR If you want the follow-up on setting up KiloClaw with Telegram, I'll link it in the cards.