PicoClaw AI Assistant Skill by ara.so — Daily 2026 Skills collection. PicoClaw is an ultra-lightweight personal AI assistant written in Go. It runs on $10 hardware with under 10MB RAM and boots in under 1 second. It supports multiple LLM providers (OpenAI-compatible, Anthropic, Volcengine), optional web search tools, and deploys as a single self-contained binary on x86_64, ARM64, MIPS, and RISC-V Linux devices. Installation Precompiled Binary Download from the releases page :

Linux ARM64 (Raspberry Pi, LicheeRV-Nano, etc.)

wget https://github.com/sipeed/picoclaw/releases/download/v0.1.1/picoclaw-linux-arm64 chmod +x picoclaw-linux-arm64 ./picoclaw-linux-arm64 onboard Build from Source git clone https://github.com/sipeed/picoclaw.git cd picoclaw

Install dependencies

make deps

Build for current platform

make build

Build for all platforms

make build-all

Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W — 32-bit

make build-linux-arm

→ build/picoclaw-linux-arm

Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W — 64-bit

make build-linux-arm64

→ build/picoclaw-linux-arm64

Build both Pi Zero variants

make build-pi-zero

Build and install to system PATH

make install Docker Compose git clone https://github.com/sipeed/picoclaw.git cd picoclaw

First run — generates docker/data/config.json then exits

docker compose -f docker/docker-compose.yml --profile gateway up

Edit config

vim docker/data/config.json

Start in background

docker compose -f docker/docker-compose.yml --profile gateway up -d

View logs

docker compose -f docker/docker-compose.yml logs -f picoclaw-gateway

Stop

docker compose -f docker/docker-compose.yml --profile gateway down Docker: Web Console (Launcher Mode) docker compose -f docker/docker-compose.yml --profile launcher up -d

Open http://localhost:18800

Docker: One-shot Agent Mode

Single question

docker compose -f docker/docker-compose.yml run --rm picoclaw-agent -m "What is 2+2?"

Interactive session

docker compose -f docker/docker-compose.yml run --rm picoclaw-agent Docker: Expose Gateway to Host If the gateway needs to be reachable from the host, set: PICOCLAW_GATEWAY_HOST = 0.0 .0.0 docker compose -f docker/docker-compose.yml --profile gateway up -d Or set PICOCLAW_GATEWAY_HOST=0.0.0.0 in docker/data/config.json . Termux (Android) pkg install wget proot wget https://github.com/sipeed/picoclaw/releases/download/v0.1.1/picoclaw-linux-arm64 chmod +x picoclaw-linux-arm64 termux-chroot ./picoclaw-linux-arm64 onboard Quick Start 1. Initialize picoclaw onboard This creates ~/.picoclaw/config.json with a starter configuration. 2. Configure ~/.picoclaw/config.json { "agents" : { "defaults" : { "workspace" : "~/.picoclaw/workspace" , "model_name" : "gpt-4o" , "max_tokens" : 8192 , "temperature" : 0.7 , "max_tool_iterations" : 20 } } , "model_list" : [ { "model_name" : "gpt-4o" , "model" : "openai/gpt-4o" , "api_key" : "$OPENAI_API_KEY" , "request_timeout" : 300 } , { "model_name" : "claude-sonnet" , "model" : "anthropic/claude-sonnet-4-5" , "api_key" : "$ANTHROPIC_API_KEY" } , { "model_name" : "ark-code" , "model" : "volcengine/ark-code-latest" , "api_key" : "$VOLCENGINE_API_KEY" , "api_base" : "https://ark.cn-beijing.volces.com/api/coding/v3" } ] , "tools" : { "web" : { "brave" : { "enabled" : false , "api_key" : "$BRAVE_API_KEY" } , "tavily" : { "enabled" : false , "api_key" : "$TAVILY_API_KEY" } } } } Never hard-code API keys. Reference environment variables using $VAR_NAME notation in config, or set them in your shell environment before launch. 3. Run

Interactive chat

picoclaw

Single message

picoclaw -m "Summarize the latest Go release notes"

Use a specific model

picoclaw -model claude-sonnet -m "Refactor this function for clarity" Key CLI Commands Command Description picoclaw onboard Initialize config and workspace picoclaw Start interactive chat session picoclaw -m "..." Send a single message and exit picoclaw -model Override the default model picoclaw -config Use a custom config file Configuration Reference Model Entry Fields { "model_name" : "my-model" , // Alias used in -model flag and agent defaults "model" : "provider/model-id" , // Provider-prefixed model identifier "api_key" : "$ENV_VAR" , // API key — use env var reference "api_base" : "https://..." , // Optional: override base URL (for self-hosted or regional endpoints) "request_timeout" : 300 // Optional: seconds before timeout } Supported Provider Prefixes Prefix Provider openai/ OpenAI and OpenAI-compatible APIs anthropic/ Anthropic Claude volcengine/ Volcengine (Ark) Agent Defaults "agents" : { "defaults" : { "workspace" : "~/.picoclaw/workspace" , // Working directory for file operations "model_name" : "gpt-4o" , // Default model alias "max_tokens" : 8192 , // Max response tokens "temperature" : 0.7 , // Sampling temperature "max_tool_iterations" : 20 // Max agentic tool-call loop iterations } } Web Search Tools Get free API keys: Tavily : https://tavily.com — 1,000 free queries/month Brave Search : https://brave.com/search/api — 2,000 free queries/month "tools" : { "web" : { "tavily" : { "enabled" : true , "api_key" : "$TAVILY_API_KEY" } , "brave" : { "enabled" : false , "api_key" : "$BRAVE_API_KEY" } } } Only enable one search provider at a time unless you want fallback behavior. Common Patterns Pattern: Minimal $10 Device Setup For a LicheeRV-Nano or similar ultra-low-resource board:

Download the RISC-V or ARM binary from releases

wget https://github.com/sipeed/picoclaw/releases/download/v0.1.1/picoclaw-linux-riscv64 chmod +x picoclaw-linux-riscv64

Initialize

./picoclaw-linux-riscv64 onboard

Edit config — use a lightweight model, low max_tokens

cat

~/.picoclaw/config.json << 'EOF' { "agents": { "defaults": { "workspace": "~/.picoclaw/workspace", "model_name": "gpt-4o-mini", "max_tokens": 2048, "temperature": 0.5, "max_tool_iterations": 10 } }, "model_list": [ { "model_name": "gpt-4o-mini", "model": "openai/gpt-4o-mini", "api_key": "$OPENAI_API_KEY", "request_timeout": 120 } ] } EOF ./picoclaw-linux-riscv64 Pattern: Full-Stack Dev Assistant with Web Search { "agents" : { "defaults" : { "workspace" : "~/projects" , "model_name" : "claude-sonnet" , "max_tokens" : 8192 , "temperature" : 0.3 , "max_tool_iterations" : 30 } } , "model_list" : [ { "model_name" : "claude-sonnet" , "model" : "anthropic/claude-sonnet-4-5" , "api_key" : "$ANTHROPIC_API_KEY" , "request_timeout" : 600 } ] , "tools" : { "web" : { "tavily" : { "enabled" : true , "api_key" : "$TAVILY_API_KEY" } } } } Pattern: Docker with Environment Variables

docker/docker-compose.override.yml

services : picoclaw-gateway : environment : - OPENAI_API_KEY=$ { OPENAI_API_KEY } - ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=$ { ANTHROPIC_API_KEY } - TAVILY_API_KEY=$ { TAVILY_API_KEY } - PICOCLAW_GATEWAY_HOST=0.0.0.0 export OPENAI_API_KEY = sk- .. . export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY = sk-ant- .. . docker compose -f docker/docker-compose.yml -f docker/docker-compose.override.yml --profile gateway up -d Pattern: Build for a Specific Target in Go

Cross-compile for MIPS (OpenWRT routers)

GOOS

linux GOARCH = mips GOMIPS = softfloat go build -o build/picoclaw-linux-mips ./cmd/picoclaw

Cross-compile for 32-bit ARM (older Raspberry Pi)

GOOS

linux GOARCH = arm GOARM = 7 go build -o build/picoclaw-linux-arm ./cmd/picoclaw

Cross-compile for RISC-V 64-bit

GOOS

linux GOARCH = riscv64 go build -o build/picoclaw-linux-riscv64 ./cmd/picoclaw Troubleshooting Binary won't execute on device

Verify the binary matches the device architecture

file picoclaw-linux-arm64 uname -m

Should match: aarch64 = arm64, x86_64 = amd64

Ensure executable permission

chmod +x picoclaw-linux-arm64 "Permission denied" on Termux Termux requires proot for some system calls: pkg install proot termux-chroot ./picoclaw-linux-arm64 onboard API key not recognized Do not use "api_key": "sk-..." literals in config — set env vars and reference them as "$OPENAI_API_KEY" . Verify the env var is exported in your current shell: echo $OPENAI_API_KEY . Docker gateway not reachable from host Set PICOCLAW_GATEWAY_HOST=0.0.0.0 in the environment or in config.json before starting the container. High memory usage in recent versions The project notes that recent PRs may push RAM usage to 10–20MB. If this is a concern on ultra-low-memory devices, pin to an earlier release tag: git checkout v0.1.1 make build Config file location Default: ~/.picoclaw/config.json Override at runtime: picoclaw -config /path/to/custom-config.json Rebuild after dependency changes cd picoclaw make deps make build Hardware Targets Quick Reference Device Price Binary LicheeRV-Nano (E/W) ~$10 picoclaw-linux-riscv64 NanoKVM ~$30–50 picoclaw-linux-riscv64 MaixCAM / MaixCAM2 ~$50–100 picoclaw-linux-arm64 Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W (32-bit OS) ~$15 picoclaw-linux-arm Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W (64-bit OS) ~$15 picoclaw-linux-arm64 Android via Termux — picoclaw-linux-arm64 Standard Linux x86_64 — picoclaw-linux-amd64