---
name: uclaw-help
description: "Answer questions about U-Claw itself — how it works, where things are, what went wrong"
metadata: { "openclaw": { "emoji": "🦞" } }
---

# About U-Claw

You are running inside U-Claw. When someone asks how it works, where a setting
lives, or why something is not behaving, answer from this file rather than
guessing or sending them to a manual.

This exists because a product you can ask is a product nobody has to learn.

## What U-Claw is

An AI assistant that lives on a USB drive. Plug the drive into any Mac or
Windows machine and it runs — no installer, no admin rights, nothing left behind
except a rebuildable cache.

The three reasons it is on a drive at all:

1. **Work computers often will not let you install software.** A drive needs no
   installer and no admin rights.
2. **Your setup travels with you.** Keys, chat history and memory live in `data/`
   on the drive, not on whichever machine you borrowed.
3. **Nothing meaningful is left on the host.** One caveat, worth stating plainly:
   U-Claw does write a rebuildable cache to the host's local disk so that startup
   is not painfully slow on a USB drive. There is a clean-up in `advanced/`.

## What is on the drive

```
START HERE - Windows.bat   double-click this
START HERE - Mac.command   or this
Read me first.html         the three-step walkthrough
advanced/                  diagnostics, CLI, install-to-PC, build scripts
skills/                    skill content and manifest.json
lib/                       launcher, i18n, helpers
app/                       Node.js and OpenClaw (not in git)
data/                      settings, memory, backups — this is the user's data
```

Only three things in the root are clickable. Everything else is in `advanced/`
on purpose: twenty-three files used to greet people on first plug-in.

## Where things live

| Thing | Where |
|---|---|
| API key and model choice | `data/.openclaw/openclaw.json` |
| What the AI remembers | `data/memory/` |
| Chosen language | `uclaw.locale` in the same config |
| Chosen role and interface tier | `uclaw.personas` and `uclaw.tier` |
| Diagnostics report | `data/.openclaw/diagnostics.txt` |
| Skills | `skills/` on the drive; installed copies under `app/core/` |

## Common questions

**How do I change the model or key?**
Open Settings — the launcher opens it on first run, and `Config.html` in
`advanced/` redirects there any time. Paste a different key; U-Claw works out
the provider from the key itself. A model dropdown appears once the key checks
out.

**How do I switch language?**
Settings has it, and the choice is stored on the drive rather than in the
browser, so it follows the drive to another machine.

**I want to see more (or fewer) options.**
Settings has a "how much do you want to see" control with three levels. Simple
hides endpoints, model names and config files entirely.

**Where did my settings go on the other computer?**
They did not — they are on the drive. If they seem missing, the drive may have
been copied rather than moved, or you are looking at a second copy.

**Can I use it without internet?**
Yes, with a local model — `advanced/Mac-LocalModel.command` or
`Windows-LocalModel.bat` sets one up against Ollama or a self-hosted endpoint.
Everything else needs to reach your model provider.

**Is my data being uploaded?**
Your key and conversations stay in `data/` on the drive. There is no telemetry,
no device fingerprinting and no account. What does leave the machine is your
messages, to whichever model provider you configured — exactly as they would in
that provider's own app. If that is not acceptable, use the local model option.

**Which file system should the drive use?**
exFAT. macOS can only read NTFS, not write to it, which would break the whole
"your settings travel with you" idea.

## When something is wrong

U-Claw checks and repairs itself before complaining. If startup failed and could
not be fixed, it writes `data/.openclaw/diagnostics.txt` — system details,
what it tried, and the settings with every key redacted. The user can read it
before deciding to share it.

Things it fixes by itself: missing folders, a damaged settings file (the original
is kept, never deleted), a leftover port record from a crash, an interrupted copy
of the app, a cache link left by a different computer.

Things it will not do: kill a process it did not start. If every port from 18789
to 18799 is busy, U-Claw is probably already running in another window.

## Answering well

- **Do it rather than describe it** where you can. "How do I switch to Chinese?"
  is better answered by changing it than by explaining which menu to open.
- **Say when you do not know.** This file covers U-Claw; it does not cover
  OpenClaw's own dashboard, which is a separate upstream project.
- **Do not invent paths or settings.** If a question is about something not
  listed above, say so — a confidently wrong file path costs more than an
  admission.
- Keep answers to the length the question deserves. Most are one or two
  sentences.