Connect OpenClaw to Your Data

Set up Expanso Cloud and wire pipelines into OpenClaw. Your credentials stay on your machine.

⚠️

Expanso Cloud Account Required

You'll need a free Expanso Cloud account to build and deploy pipelines. Create your free account →

Prerequisites

This tutorial assumes you have OpenClaw installed and running. If not, get OpenClaw first.

Create Your Expanso Cloud Account

Expanso Cloud handles pipeline building, deployment, scheduling, and monitoring. The free tier is generous—no credit card needed.

1.1 Sign up for free

Create your account at cloud.expanso.io:

# Open the signup page
open https://cloud.expanso.io/signup

1.2 Install the Expanso CLI

Install the CLI tools on your machine:

# macOS / Linux curl -fsSL https://get.expanso.io/edge/install.sh | bash Verify installation

expanso-edge –version

1.3 Connect to Cloud

Get your bootstrap token from the Cloud dashboard. Store it in an environment variable (this keeps it out of your shell history and demonstrates credential isolation):

# Store your token in an environment variable export EXPANSO_BOOTSTRAP_TOKEN="exso_bt_your_token_here" Authenticate using the environment variable

expanso-edge bootstrap –token “$EXPANSO_BOOTSTRAP_TOKEN”

Your credentials stay in your shell environment—OpenClaw and the AI never see them.

Create Free Account →

Account ready? Build your pipeline in Cloud

Build and Deploy in Expanso Cloud

Use the Expanso Cloud dashboard to create, test, and deploy pipelines—no CLI required.

2.1 Open Expanso Cloud

Go to cloud.expanso.io and sign in to your account.

2.2 Create a new pipeline

Click New Pipeline and use the visual editor or paste YAML directly. Here's a simple example:

input:
  generate:
    count: 1
    mapping: |
      root.message = "Hello from Expanso!"
      root.timestamp = now()
pipeline:
processors:
- mapping: |
root = this
root.processed = true
output:
stdout: {}

2.3 Deploy with one click

Click Deploy in the Cloud dashboard. Your pipeline runs on your connected edge node—credentials stay local.

Browse ready-made pipelines: We have 172 pre-built pipelines for email triage, Stripe reports, DevOps monitoring, and more. Browse the catalog →

Open Expanso Cloud → Browse 172 Pipelines

Pipeline deployed? Connect to OpenClaw

Connect to Your AI Assistant

Add the Expanso MCP server to OpenClaw, Claude Desktop, or any MCP-compatible client.

3.1 For Claude Desktop

Add to your claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "expanso-pipelines": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["@expanso/mcp-pipelines"]
    }
  }
}

3.2 For OpenClaw

expanso-cli mcp add npx @expanso/mcp-pipelines

Security: Your API keys (OpenAI, Slack, Stripe, etc.) are stored in environment variables on your machine. The MCP server reads them locally—they're never sent to the AI.

You're All Set! 🎉

Browse our catalog of 172 ready-to-use pipelines, or build your own in Expanso Cloud.

Open Expanso Cloud → Browse Pipelines Join Slack

Need Help?

💬 Join our Slack for real-time help
📚 Read the docs for detailed configuration
🐛 Report issues on GitHub