Get OpenClaw to Actually BUILD with Claude Code

OpenClaw + Claude Code is the creator's default build stack, running unattended for a week straight on a $3 VPS with no manual coding.

## The Setup Is Mostly Telling Your Agent What To Do There is no software install. The whole procedure is: message OpenClaw, say "use Claude Code," have the agent log in, and confirm it works. The creator enables dangerously skip permissions so the agent can dismiss Claude Code's permission popups. He saves it as a reusable skill: "make it a skill for you to use Claude Code."

The biggest gotcha is termination errors. When clock code is being terminated, he asks the agent to debug its own tool — that single prompt forces the loop to self-heal.

## Why Claude Code Beats Cursor and Windsurf The creator compared all three. Cursor and Windsurf produced code that "is not what we're looking for." Claude Code wins because it generates the specification document itself once you give it the user requirements. That spec-writing step is what makes the output manageable later.

The framing he uses: a $20/month coding plan behaves like "a $800 per month developer," with the caveat that it's "as good as let's say 150K per year programmers" only when you guide it correctly. Both MiniMax and Opus qualify.

## The MiniMax Workaround (For Non-Anthropic Users) The minimax.code repo has full instructions. You change the Anthropic base URL and paste your MiniMax key. His current $20 coding plan is "more than enough for you to build."

## What The Agent Built This Week - Grandmaster — a cron job that ships a new mini-game every hour, running on the same VPS as OpenClaw - World Monitor — a customizable dashboard concept he plans to clone from GitHub, then have Claude Code study and modify

He also told the agent to "use Claude Code to study the entire codebase of open claw and write me a plugin" — that command pattern is the template.

## The Real Failure Mode Claude Code "does make some basic mistakes." The fix is always the same: log back in, re-specify the intent, let it retry. On an isolated $3 VPS, the worst case is a server reinstall, which is why the creator runs multiple test servers.