NanoClaw's answer to OpenClaw is minimal code, maximum isolation

OnThe New Stack Agents, Gavriel Cohen discusses why he built NanoClaw, a minimalist alternative to OpenClaw, after discovering security and architectural flaws in the rapidly growing agentic framework. Cohen, co-founder of AI marketing agencyQwibit, had been running agents across operations, sales, and research usingClaude Code. When Clawdbot (laterOpenClaw) launched, it initially seemed ideal. But Cohen grew concerned after noticing questionable dependencies—including his own outdated GitHub package—excessive WhatsApp data storage, a massive AI-generated codebase nearing 400,000 lines, and a lack of OS-level isolation between agents. In response, he createdNanoClawwith radical minimalism: only a few hundred core lines, minimal dependencies, and containerized agents. Built around Claude Code “skills,” NanoClaw enables modular, build-time integrations while keeping the runtime small enough to audit easily. Cohen argues AI changes coding norms—favoring duplication over DRY, relaxing strict file limits, and treating code as disposable. His goal is simple, secure infrastructure that enterprises can fully understand and trust. Learn more from The New Stack about the latest around personal AI agents Anthropic: You can still use your Claude accounts to run OpenClaw, NanoClaw and Co. It took a researcher fewer than 2 hours to hijack OpenClaw OpenClaw is being called a security “Dumpster fire,” but there is a way to stay safe Join our community of newsletter subscribers to stay on top of the news and at the top of your game.