ClawNexus vs IDENTITY.md
Instance registry for multiple OpenClaw instances vs single-agent personality config. They solve completely different problems.
Instance Registry
ClawNexus
- Manages multiple OpenClaw instances
- Discovers instances automatically on your network
- Assigns human-readable names (home, raspi, office)
- Connects instances across networks via encrypted relay
- Runs as a background daemon
- Installed once per network
Single-Agent Config
IDENTITY.md
- Configures a single OpenClaw instance
- Sets personality and behavior
- Defines the agent's own name and role
- No networking functionality
- Read once at agent startup
- Lives inside each OpenClaw install
Feature Comparison
| Feature | ClawNexus | IDENTITY.md |
|---|---|---|
| Manages multiple instances | Yes | No |
| Works across multiple machines | Yes | Single machine only |
| LAN / cross-network discovery | Yes | No |
| Encrypted relay (X25519 + AES-256-GCM) | Yes | No |
| Assigns names to instances | Yes | Agent's own name |
| Sets agent personality | No | Yes |
| Runs as background daemon | Yes | Read at startup |
| Open source (MIT) | Yes | Built into OpenClaw |
When to Use Which
Use IDENTITY.md when you want to give your OpenClaw instance a name, set its personality, or define how it should behave. This is a per-instance config file inside OpenClaw itself.
Use ClawNexus when you have multiple OpenClaw instances across machines and want to discover them automatically, give them memorable names, and connect them — including across different networks via encrypted relay.
They are complementary: each OpenClaw instance can have its own IDENTITY.md, and ClawNexus sits on top to discover and connect all of them.