Migrating from OpenClaw
LocalGPT is a spiritual successor to OpenClaw, built from scratch in Rust. It uses the same workspace file formats and conventions, so migrating your data is straightforward.
LocalGPT does not auto-migrate your OpenClaw data. Follow the steps below to bring your existing workspace, config, and sessions into LocalGPT.
Config
OpenClaw uses ~/.openclaw/config.json5. LocalGPT uses ~/.config/localgpt/config.toml.
Create your LocalGPT config manually. Here is a mapping of the most common settings:
OpenClaw (config.json5) | LocalGPT (config.toml) |
|---|---|
agents.defaults.model | agent.default_model |
agents.defaults.workspace | memory.workspace |
agents.defaults.contextWindow | agent.context_window |
models.openai.apiKey | providers.openai.api_key |
models.anthropic.apiKey | providers.anthropic.api_key |
Example LocalGPT config:
[agent]
default_model = "claude-cli/opus"
context_window = 128000
[providers.anthropic]
api_key = "${ANTHROPIC_API_KEY}"
[providers.claude_cli]
command = "claude"
Run localgpt config show to verify your configuration after creating the file.
Workspace files
OpenClaw workspace files are plain Markdown and fully compatible. Copy them directly:
cp -r ~/.openclaw/workspace/* ~/.local/share/localgpt/workspace/
This includes:
| File | Purpose |
|---|---|
MEMORY.md | Long-term curated knowledge |
HEARTBEAT.md | Pending autonomous tasks |
SOUL.md | Persona and tone guidance |
USER.md | User profile |
IDENTITY.md | Agent identity |
TOOLS.md | Tool notes |
AGENTS.md | Operating instructions |
memory/*.md | Daily logs |
knowledge/**/*.md | Knowledge repository |
skills/*/SKILL.md | Custom skills |
LocalGPT will rebuild the memory index automatically on first run.
Session data
Session transcripts and metadata can be copied as-is:
cp -r ~/.openclaw/agents ~/.local/share/localgpt/agents
This preserves your conversation history, session IDs, and CLI session mappings.
Key differences
LocalGPT removes several OpenClaw features that were specific to multi-channel or remote operation:
- No remote channels — Telegram, Discord, Slack, and other integrations are removed (Telegram bot is available as a separate feature)
- No plugin/extension system — LocalGPT uses a simpler skills-based approach
- No gateway routing — single-agent, local-first design
- No web UI/Canvas — CLI and HTTP API only
- No subagent spawning — single "main" agent
Everything else — memory, heartbeat, skills, session management — works the same way.
Cleanup
Once you have verified that LocalGPT is working correctly with your migrated data, you can optionally remove the OpenClaw directory:
rm -rf ~/.openclaw
This will suppress the startup notice about detected OpenClaw data.