What Happens in This Section

You'll register each agent with OpenClaw and give them their first command. By the end, all 6 agents will be live — reporting to their Discord channels and ready to receive instructions from you.

Two ways to talk to your agents:

Method	Best for	How it works
OpenGoat UI	Beginners — visual interface	Browser-based dashboard, click to select agent, type your message
VS Code terminal	Recommended — faster, more control	openclaw agent --agent [id] "your message"

Both methods work. Start with whichever feels comfortable.

Recommended approach — hybrid with AI: When you're just starting out, keep a Claude, ChatGPT, or Gemini chat open alongside your agents. If a command doesn't work or you're not sure what to type, just describe the situation to the AI and ask for help. This is exactly how most people — including the BALIA OS team — ran things in the beginning. You don't need to master the terminal on day one. The AI chat window is always there as your co-pilot.

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How This Section Works

Paste the prompt below into Claude, ChatGPT, or Gemini. The AI will guide you through registering all 6 agents and sending your first command to each one. Attach your Team Design Document so the AI knows your agent IDs and workspace paths.

If anything goes wrong, describe the error or take a screenshot and share it — the AI will help you fix it.

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▶ Paste this into your AI to get started

Attach your Team Design Document before sending.

You are helping me register and launch my BALIA OS multi-agent team 
on OpenClaw.

I have attached my Team Design Document. Read it to get my agent IDs,
names, and workspace paths before starting.

My balia-os path is set in my .env file as BALIA_OS_PATH.
Please ask me to open my .env file and read the value of BALIA_OS_PATH,
then use that path throughout this session.

Guide me step by step. One step at a time. If I hit an error,
help me fix it before moving on. If I get stuck, ask me to share
a screenshot or paste the error message.

Here is what we need to do:

STEP 1 — Start the gateway
Tell me: "We'll start the OpenClaw gateway with a command that filters 
out noisy background logs so the terminal stays readable."

Guide me to open a new VS Code terminal tab and run the correct command 
for my OS (ask me which OS I'm on if you don't know yet):

Windows:
  $env:DEBUG="-ciao*"; openclaw gateway --force

Mac:
  DEBUG="-ciao*" openclaw gateway --force

Explain what this does:
"The DEBUG='-ciao*' part hides background network discovery logs that 
would otherwise flood the terminal. The --force flag clears any 
previous gateway instance. Your terminal will stay clean and readable."

Ask me to confirm I see: "✓ Gateway running on port 18789"
Tell me to leave this terminal tab open — the gateway must keep running.
If there's an error, help me fix it before moving on.

STEP 2 — Register each agent with OpenClaw
For each of my 6 agents (read IDs from Team Design Document),
guide me to run this command in the VS Code terminal:

openclaw agents add [agentid] --workspace ~/.openclaw/workspace-[agentid]

Example: openclaw agents add marcus --workspace ~/.openclaw/workspace-marcus

Show me all 6 commands at once with my actual agent IDs filled in.
Ask me to run them one by one and confirm each succeeds before 
showing the next one.

After all 6 are registered, guide me to verify:
openclaw agents list
Ask me to confirm all 6 agents appear in the list.

STEP 3 — Restart the gateway
After registering agents, the gateway needs to restart to load them.
Guide me to run:
openclaw gateway restart
Ask me to confirm the gateway is running again before moving on.

STEP 4 — Send first command via VS Code terminal (recommended)
Explain this first:
"The VS Code terminal is the recommended way to talk to your agents.
The command is:
openclaw agent --agent [agentid] 'your message here'

This sends a message directly to that specific agent."

Guide me to send a test command to the first agent:
openclaw agent --agent [first-agentid] 'Please introduce yourself and 
confirm you have read your SOUL.md, AGENTS.md, and IDENTITY.md. 
Then report to your Discord channel that you are online.'

Ask me: "What did the agent respond? 
Did you see a message appear in its Discord channel?"
If yes: great — move to next agent.
If no: help me troubleshoot.

Repeat for all 6 agents.

STEP 5 — (Optional) OpenGoat UI setup
After all agents are confirmed working via terminal, offer:
"You can also talk to your agents through the OpenGoat UI — 
a visual browser dashboard.
Would you like to set that up as well?
It gives you a clickable interface to select agents and send messages
without typing terminal commands."
If yes: guide me to:
1. Open a new VS Code terminal tab
2. Run: opengoat start
3. The browser will open automatically with the OpenGoat UI
Walk me through the interface — how to select an agent and send a message.
(If the browser doesn't open automatically, go to http://localhost:18789)
If no: skip and move to Step 6.

STEP 6 — Final confirmation
Run through this checklist with me:
□ All 6 agents registered (openclaw agents list shows all 6)
□ Gateway running (port 18789)
□ Each agent responded to first command
□ Each agent posted to their Discord channel
□ (Optional) OpenGoat UI accessible at localhost:18789

When all boxes are checked, say:
"Your BALIA OS team is live. All 6 agents are running and reporting 
to Discord. You're ready for Section 6 — Building Your First 
Skill Cassette."

Start now. Ask me the first question.

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Talking to Your Agents Day-to-Day

Once everything is set up, here's how you give commands:

Start the gateway (do this first, every session):

Windows:

$env:DEBUG="-ciao*"; openclaw gateway --force

Mac:

DEBUG="-ciao*" openclaw gateway --force

Leave this terminal tab running. Open a new tab for other commands.

Via VS Code terminal:

# Talk to a specific agent
openclaw agent --agent marcus "Summarize what you worked on today"

# Check agent list
openclaw agents list

# Restart gateway if needed
openclaw gateway restart

Via OpenGoat UI:

1. Open a new VS Code terminal tab
2. Run: opengoat start
3. The browser opens automatically with the OpenGoat UI
4. Select agent from the left panel
5. Type your message and press Enter (If the browser doesn't open automatically: go to http://localhost:18789)

Via Discord (reports only — not for commands): Discord is where your agents post their reports. You read their updates here. Sending commands to agents via Discord requires a Discord Bot — this is an advanced setup not covered in T1. Use VS Code terminal or OpenGoat UI to give commands for now.

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If an Agent Doesn't Respond

Check these in order:

1. Is the gateway running?

   openclaw gateway restart

2. Is the agent registered?

   openclaw agents list

   If your agent isn't listed, re-run the agents add command from Step 2.

3. Are the workspace files in the right place? Check that SOUL.md, AGENTS.md, and IDENTITY.md exist in: ~/.openclaw/workspace-[agentid]/

4. Is the API key set correctly? Open .env and confirm ANTHROPIC_API_KEY is filled in.

If you're still stuck, paste the error message into Claude, ChatGPT, or Gemini and ask for help.