picoclaw/docs/docker.md

🐳 Docker & Quick Start Guide

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🐳 Docker Compose

You can also run PicoClaw using Docker Compose without installing anything locally.

# 1. Clone this repo
git clone https://github.com/sipeed/picoclaw.git
cd picoclaw

# 2. First run — auto-generates docker/data/config.json then exits
#    (only triggers when both config.json and workspace/ are missing)
docker compose -f docker/docker-compose.yml --profile gateway up
# The container prints "First-run setup complete." and stops.

# 3. Set your API keys
vim docker/data/config.json   # Set provider API keys, bot tokens, etc.

# 4. Start
docker compose -f docker/docker-compose.yml --profile gateway up -d

Tip

Docker Users: By default, the Gateway listens on 127.0.0.1 which is not accessible from the host. If you need to access the health endpoints or expose ports, set PICOCLAW_GATEWAY_HOST=0.0.0.0 in your environment or update config.json.

# 5. Check logs
docker compose -f docker/docker-compose.yml logs -f picoclaw-gateway

# 6. Stop
docker compose -f docker/docker-compose.yml --profile gateway down

Launcher Mode (Web Console)

The launcher image includes all three binaries (picoclaw, picoclaw-launcher, picoclaw-launcher-tui) and starts the web console by default, which provides a browser-based UI for configuration and chat.

docker compose -f docker/docker-compose.yml --profile launcher up -d

Open http://localhost:18800 in your browser. The launcher manages the gateway process automatically.

Warning

The web console does not yet support authentication. Avoid exposing it to the public internet.

Agent Mode (One-shot)

# Ask a question
docker compose -f docker/docker-compose.yml run --rm picoclaw-agent -m "What is 2+2?"

# Interactive mode
docker compose -f docker/docker-compose.yml run --rm picoclaw-agent

Update

docker compose -f docker/docker-compose.yml pull
docker compose -f docker/docker-compose.yml --profile gateway up -d

🚀 Quick Start

Tip

Set your API Key in ~/.picoclaw/config.json. Get API Keys: Volcengine (CodingPlan) (LLM) · OpenRouter (LLM) · Zhipu (LLM). Web search is optional — get a free Tavily API (1000 free queries/month) or Brave Search API (2000 free queries/month).

1. Initialize

picoclaw onboard

2. Configure (~/.picoclaw/config.json)

{
  "agents": {
    "defaults": {
      "workspace": "~/.picoclaw/workspace",
      "model_name": "gpt-5.4",
      "max_tokens": 8192,
      "temperature": 0.7,
      "max_tool_iterations": 20
    }
  },
  "model_list": [
    {
      "model_name": "ark-code-latest",
      "model": "volcengine/ark-code-latest",
      "api_key": "sk-your-api-key",
      "api_base":"https://ark.cn-beijing.volces.com/api/coding/v3"
    },
    {
      "model_name": "gpt-5.4",
      "model": "openai/gpt-5.4",
      "api_key": "your-api-key",
      "request_timeout": 300
    },
    {
      "model_name": "claude-sonnet-4.6",
      "model": "anthropic/claude-sonnet-4.6",
      "api_key": "your-anthropic-key"
    }
  ],
  "tools": {
    "web": {
      "enabled": true,
      "fetch_limit_bytes": 10485760,
      "format": "plaintext",
      "brave": {
        "enabled": false,
        "api_key": "YOUR_BRAVE_API_KEY",
        "max_results": 5
      },
      "tavily": {
        "enabled": false,
        "api_key": "YOUR_TAVILY_API_KEY",
        "max_results": 5
      },
      "duckduckgo": {
        "enabled": true,
        "max_results": 5
      },
      "perplexity": {
        "enabled": false,
        "api_key": "YOUR_PERPLEXITY_API_KEY",
        "max_results": 5
      },
      "searxng": {
        "enabled": false,
        "base_url": "http://your-searxng-instance:8888",
        "max_results": 5
      }
    }
  }
}

New: The model_list configuration format allows zero-code provider addition. See Model Configuration for details. request_timeout is optional and uses seconds. If omitted or set to <= 0, PicoClaw uses the default timeout (120s).

3. Get API Keys

• LLM Provider: OpenRouter · Zhipu · Anthropic · OpenAI · Gemini
• Web Search (optional):
  • Brave Search - Paid ($5/1000 queries, ~$5-6/month)
  • Perplexity - AI-powered search with chat interface
  • SearXNG - Self-hosted metasearch engine (free, no API key needed)
  • Tavily - Optimized for AI Agents (1000 requests/month)
  • DuckDuckGo - Built-in fallback (no API key required)

Note

: See config.example.json for a complete configuration template.

4. Chat

picoclaw agent -m "What is 2+2?"

That's it! You have a working AI assistant in 2 minutes.

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