AWS infrastructure for an always-on OpenClaw autonomous AI agent — EC2 + Slack + Anthropic API + OpenRouter, ~$14/month.
A single EC2 t4g.small instance (Ubuntu 24.04 arm64, 2GB RAM) running the OpenClaw gateway as a systemd service. Reachable via Slack DM (Socket Mode — no inbound ports). Access via AWS SSM Session Manager (no SSH, no open port 22). AWS credentials via EC2 instance role — no access keys on disk.
# 1. Check for existing deployments first
cd infra && terraform state list 2>/dev/null
# 2. Copy and fill in repo URLs / region; store secrets in SSM (see docs/setup.md step 3b)
cp infra/terraform.tfvars.example infra/terraform.tfvars
# 3. Deploy
terraform init && terraform apply
# 4. Add GitHub deploy key, approve Slack pairing (see docs/setup.md)
# 5. Run smoke tests
cd .. && uv run pytest tests/smoke/ -vdocs/setup.md— full setup guide (includes pre-flight check)docs/terraform-state.md— state management and recoverydocs/peer-monitoring.md— two agents watching each other via SSMdocs/messaging-channel-decision.md— why Slack now, Matrix laterdocs/use-cases.md— capabilities and IAM expansion patterndocs/archive/— legacy Lightsail docs and one-time migration guide
This instance runs alongside hermes-aws — a companion agent on a separate EC2 instance. The two watch each other for failures using AWS SSM: OpenClaw polls Hermes hourly and DMs the owner if Hermes goes dark. See docs/peer-monitoring.md for how to set this up between any two agent instances.
| Component | Cost |
|---|---|
| EC2 t4g.small (2GB RAM, arm64) | ~$13/month |
| EBS gp3 16GB root | ~$1.28/month |
| DLM daily AMI snapshots (7-day retain) | ~$0.40/month |
| Anthropic API (haiku/sonnet/opus — same price as OpenRouter) | ~$0–2/month |
| OpenRouter (codex, gemini, flash fallbacks) | ~$0/month |
| Total | ~$14/month |
1-year reserved t4g.small: ~$8.50/month → ~$9.50/month total — comparable to the previous Lightsail setup ($7/month instance, but with 2× RAM and proper IAM instance role).
Originally based on Running OpenClaw on AWS Lightsail by awsfundamentals.com. This repo migrated to EC2 for the IAM instance role, more RAM, and ARM64 pricing — the original Lightsail approach is preserved in docs/archive/lightsail-setup-plan.md.