🐳 Docker & Quick Start Guide

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🐳 Docker Compose

You can also run PicoClaw using Docker Compose without installing anything locally.

bash

# 1. Clone this repo
git clone https://github.com/sipeed/picoclaw.git
cd picoclaw

# 2. First run — auto-generates docker/data/config.json then exits
#    (only triggers when both config.json and workspace/ are missing)
docker compose -f docker/docker-compose.yml --profile gateway up
# The container prints "First-run setup complete." and stops.

# 3. Set your API keys
vim docker/data/config.json   # Set provider API keys, bot tokens, etc.

# 4. Start
docker compose -f docker/docker-compose.yml --profile gateway up -d

[!TIP] Docker Users: By default, the Gateway listens on 127.0.0.1 which is not accessible from the host. If you need to access the health endpoints or expose ports, set PICOCLAW_GATEWAY_HOST=0.0.0.0 in your environment or update config.json.

[!NOTE] The gateway profile only serves the webhook handlers (including Pico when enabled) and health endpoints on the gateway port, so it does not expose generic REST chat endpoints such as /chat or /a2a. Launcher mode adds the browser UI plus /api/pico/info and an authenticated /pico/ws proxy on the launcher port, but /pico/ws is also available directly on the gateway whenever the Pico channel is enabled.

bash

# 5. Check logs
docker compose -f docker/docker-compose.yml logs -f picoclaw-gateway

# 6. Stop
docker compose -f docker/docker-compose.yml --profile gateway down

Launcher Mode (Web Console)

The launcher image includes both binaries (picoclaw, picoclaw-launcher) and starts the web console by default, which provides a browser-based UI for configuration and chat.

bash

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

Open http://localhost:18800 in your browser. The launcher manages the gateway process automatically.

[!WARNING] The web console is protected by dashboard password login. Do not expose the launcher to untrusted networks or the public internet. See Web launcher dashboard in the Configuration Guide.

Agent Mode (One-shot)

bash

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

# Interactive mode
docker compose -f docker/docker-compose.yml run --rm picoclaw-agent

Update

bash

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

🚀 Quick Start

[!TIP] Set your API Key in ~/.picoclaw/config.json. Get API Keys: Volcengine (CodingPlan) (LLM) · OpenRouter (LLM) · Zhipu (LLM). Web search is optional — get a free Tavily API (1000 free queries/month) or Brave Search API (2000 free queries/month).

1. Initialize

bash

picoclaw onboard

2. Configure (~/.picoclaw/config.json)

json

{
  "agents": {
    "defaults": {
      "workspace": "~/.picoclaw/workspace",
      "model_name": "gpt-5.4",
      "max_tokens": 8192,
      "temperature": 0.7,
      "max_tool_iterations": 20
    }
  },
  "model_list": [
    {
      "model_name": "ark-code-latest",
      "provider": "volcengine",
      "model": "ark-code-latest",
      "api_keys": ["sk-your-api-key"],
      "api_base":"https://ark.cn-beijing.volces.com/api/coding/v3"
    },
    {
      "model_name": "gpt-5.4",
      "provider": "openai",
      "model": "gpt-5.4",
      "api_keys": ["your-api-key"],
      "request_timeout": 300
    },
    {
      "model_name": "claude-sonnet-4.6",
      "provider": "anthropic",
      "model": "claude-sonnet-4.6",
      "api_keys": ["your-anthropic-key"]
    }
  ],
  "tools": {
    "web": {
      "enabled": true,
      "fetch_limit_bytes": 10485760,
      "format": "plaintext",
      "brave": {
        "enabled": false,
        "api_key": "YOUR_BRAVE_API_KEY",
        "max_results": 5
      },
      "tavily": {
        "enabled": false,
        "api_key": "YOUR_TAVILY_API_KEY",
        "max_results": 5
      },
      "duckduckgo": {
        "enabled": true,
        "max_results": 5
      },
      "perplexity": {
        "enabled": false,
        "api_key": "YOUR_PERPLEXITY_API_KEY",
        "max_results": 5
      },
      "searxng": {
        "enabled": false,
        "base_url": "http://your-searxng-instance:8888",
        "max_results": 5
      }
    }
  }
}

New: The model_list configuration format allows zero-code provider addition. See Model Configuration for details. request_timeout is optional and uses seconds. If omitted or set to <= 0, PicoClaw uses the default timeout (120s).

3. Get API Keys

LLM Provider: OpenRouter · Zhipu · Anthropic · OpenAI · Gemini
Web Search (optional):
- Brave Search - Paid ($5/1000 queries, ~$5-6/month)
- Perplexity - AI-powered search with chat interface
- SearXNG - Self-hosted metasearch engine (free, no API key needed)
- Tavily - Optimized for AI Agents (1000 requests/month)
- DuckDuckGo - Built-in fallback (no API key required)

Note: See config.example.json for a complete configuration template.

4. Chat

bash

picoclaw agent -m "What is 2+2?"

That's it! You have a working AI assistant in 2 minutes.