Devil's Claw

Send your idea on Telegram. Get a brutal reality check with real data, then get the GitHub repos to build it smarter.

Built for the AI Tinkerers OpenClaw Hackathon (Feb 2026).

---

What It Does

Devil's Claw is an OpenClaw skill that acts as a brutally honest startup and project advisor via Telegram.

Dual mode detection:

• STARTUP mode — finds real competitors, tears apart why it'll fail, suggests pivots
• PROJECT mode — finds similar tools, builds a feature comparison, suggests differentiation angles

Both modes end with a GitHub Arsenal — real repos ranked by relevance to help you start building.

Demo

Send any idea to the Telegram bot and get back a structured reality check in ~30 seconds:

"I want to build an AI app for dog walkers"
→ STARTUP mode: Rover, Wag!, market data, 3 pivot options, GitHub repos

"I want to build a CLI tool for managing dotfiles"
→ PROJECT mode: chezmoi, stow, yadm comparison, differentiation angles, GitHub repos

---

Stack

Component	Technology
Framework	OpenClaw
LLM	Claude Sonnet 4.5 via OpenRouter
Web search	Perplexity Sonar (built-in OpenClaw tool)
Channel	Telegram
Infra	Docker Compose

---

Setup

Prerequisites

• Docker + Docker Compose
• Node.js 22+
• A Telegram bot token (from @BotFather)
• An OpenRouter API key

1. Install OpenClaw

git clone https://github.com/openclaw/openclaw.git ~/openclaw
cd ~/openclaw
./docker-setup.sh

Follow the onboarding wizard. When it asks for the LLM provider, select OpenRouter and paste your API key.

2. Configure

Edit ~/.openclaw/openclaw.json:

{
  "gateway": {
    "mode": "local",
    "auth": { "token": "<your-gateway-token>" }
  },
  "env": {
    "OPENROUTER_API_KEY": "<your-openrouter-key>"
  },
  "agents": {
    "defaults": {
      "model": { "primary": "openrouter/anthropic/claude-sonnet-4-5" }
    }
  },
  "channels": {
    "telegram": {
      "enabled": true,
      "botToken": "<your-telegram-bot-token>",
      "dmPolicy": "open",
      "allowFrom": ["*"]
    }
  }
}

3. Deploy the Skill

# Copy skill files to OpenClaw workspace
mkdir -p ~/.openclaw/workspace/skills/devils-claw/tools

cp "Devil's Claw/SOUL.md" ~/.openclaw/workspace/
cp "Devil's Claw/SKILL.md" ~/.openclaw/workspace/skills/devils-claw/
cp "Devil's Claw/tools/"* ~/.openclaw/workspace/skills/devils-claw/tools/

# Start the gateway
docker compose -f ~/openclaw/docker-compose.yml up -d openclaw-gateway

4. Test It

DM your Telegram bot:

I want to build a SaaS for restaurant reservations

---

Project Structure

Devil's Claw/
  ├── SOUL.md          # Devil's Advocate persona
  ├── SKILL.md         # Step-by-step agent instructions
  ├── PRD.md           # Full product requirements
  └── tools/
      ├── market_search.py   # Tavily web search tool (reference)
      ├── github_scout.py    # GitHub API search tool (reference)
      └── pyproject.toml     # Python dependencies

---

Why Devil's Claw Wins

1. Instantly demo-able — judge sends an idea, gets roasted in 30 seconds
2. Actually useful — every builder has an unvalidated idea
3. Real data — no hallucinations, all claims backed by live web search
4. OpenClaw native — SOUL.md persona, custom skill, Telegram channel