February 1, 2026
Claws out on HN
Show HN: NanoClaw – "Clawdbot" in 500 lines of TS with Apple container isolation
Tiny “Clawdbot” drops in 500 lines — fans cheer, skeptics scream 404
TLDR: A tiny, 500‑line AI assistant promises safer, simpler on‑device help using Apple’s container sandbox. The crowd is split: fans love the minimal, secure vibe; skeptics point to a missing repo link and argue over Apple containers vs. Docker and whether tight sandboxes kill powerful automations.
A DIY personal AI butler just crashed the party, promising big brains in a tiny box. “NanoClaw” claims it’s a small, secure assistant you can actually understand: one process, a few files, and it runs in Apple’s container sandbox so your Mac stays safe. The pitch? Forget bloated toolkits — fork it, tweak it, and let Claude (Anthropic’s AI) do the setup. But the crowd didn’t just clap — they clawed back.
The hype squad is vibing on the minimalism and isolation. One commenter joked the project “passes the Turing test for programmers,” and another is already eyeing a Mac mini upgrade (“Tahoe, anyone?”). It’s the fantasy of a pocket-sized, trustworthy AI sidekick.
Then the brakes squealed: users spotted that the GitHub repo didn’t exist at post time, prompting a spicy “is the Quick Start a hallucination?” jab. That stung, especially for a project selling security and trust. More sparks flew over the Apple Containers vs. Docker choice: fans say native containers keep things light; doubters worry about missing Linux tools and ask if the AI is supposed to guess macOS equivalents. Another debate: the old bot’s “let it do anything” power versus NanoClaw’s tighter sandbox — safer, sure, but does it neuter the magic?
Verdict from the peanut gallery: brilliant direction, but show receipts, fix the link, and prove the sandbox isn’t a sandtrap.
Key Points
- •NanoClaw is a minimal, personal Claude assistant focused on OS-level isolation via Apple and Linux containers.
- •It contrasts with OpenClaw’s complexity and application-level permissions, aiming for a small, understandable codebase.
- •Setup is guided by Claude Code, which configures dependencies, authentication, containers, and services.
- •Features include WhatsApp I/O, per-group isolated memory and filesystems, a main admin channel, scheduled tasks, and web access.
- •Integrations are added via skills (e.g., /add-gmail), and customization is done through code changes under an AI-native workflow.