Skip to main content

OpenClaw integration

Copy for LLM

OpenClaw is an open-source AI agent orchestration platform that enables you to build, deploy, and manage autonomous AI agents. The Apify plugin for OpenClaw gives your agents access to thousands of pre-built Actors for web scraping, data extraction, and automation through a single apify tool.

For more details about OpenClaw, refer to the official documentation.

Help keep this page up to date

This integration uses a third-party service. If you find outdated content, please submit an issue on GitHub.

Quick start

Install the plugin, run the setup wizard, and restart the gateway:

openclaw plugins install @apify/apify-openclaw-plugin
openclaw apify setup
openclaw gateway restart

Watch a quick demo of the Apify plugin for OpenClaw:

Prerequisites

Before integrating Apify with OpenClaw, you'll need:

Set up the Apify plugin

Setting up the plugin involves three steps:

  1. Install the plugin
  2. Configure your API token (interactively or manually)
  3. Verify the setup

Install the plugin

Use the OpenClaw CLI to install the Apify plugin from the plugin registry:

openclaw plugins install @apify/apify-openclaw-plugin

This downloads the plugin and registers it with your OpenClaw installation.

Run the setup wizard to configure your API key:

openclaw apify setup

The wizard prompts you for your Apify API token, verifies the connection, and writes the configuration to your OpenClaw config file. You can find your token in the API & Integrations section of Apify Console.

After setup, restart the gateway to load the plugin:

openclaw gateway restart

Configure manually

If you prefer to skip the wizard, add the plugin configuration directly to your ~/.openclaw/config.json:

{
  "plugins": {
    "entries": {
      "apify": {
        "enabled": true,
        "config": {
          "apiKey": "apify_api_..."
        }
      }
    }
  },
  "tools": {
    "alsoAllow": ["apify"]
  }
}

Then restart the gateway:

openclaw gateway restart
Tool allowlisting required

The apify tool must be listed in tools.alsoAllow in your config, or you can use "group:plugins" to allow all plugin tools. Without this, the tool won't be available to your agents.

Verify the setup

Check your configuration:

openclaw apify status

Apify tool overview

The plugin registers a single apify tool with three actions:

ActionPurposediscoverSearch Apify Store for Actors by keyword, or fetch an Actor's input schemastartRun an Actor asynchronously and get a runId backcollectRetrieve results from completed Actor runs

Two-phase async pattern

The tool uses an asynchronous workflow. Your agent starts an Actor run and gets a runId immediately, then collects results later when the run completes. This lets agents do other work while Actors are running.

discover (search) -> discover (schema) -> start -> collect

Batch multiple targets

Most Actors accept arrays in their input (for example, startUrls, queries, usernames). As a best practice, batch multiple targets into a single run - one run with 5 URLs is cheaper and faster than 5 separate runs.

What you can do

Once the plugin is set up, your OpenClaw agents can:

Actor runs may take some time

Actor execution time varies depending on the task complexity. Check Actor run status in Apify Console if a run takes longer than expected.

Configuration options

OptionTypeDefaultDescriptionapiKeystringAPIFY_API_KEY env varYour Apify API tokenbaseUrlstringhttps://api.apify.comApify API base URLmaxResultsnumber20Maximum items to return per dataset (1-1000)enabledToolsstring[][] (all enabled)Restrict which tool actions are available

Troubleshooting

Authentication errors

Tool not available to agents

Actor run failures

Report an issue

If you encounter a bug or have a feature request, open an issue on the plugin's GitHub repository.

Resources