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Connect OpenClaw to Your Data
A step-by-step guide to set up Expanso pipelines and wire them into OpenClaw. Your credentials stay on your machine.
⚠️
Expanso Cloud Account Required
You'll need a free Expanso Cloud account to use expanso-edge. The CLI authenticates with Cloud to validate pipelines and manage deployments. Create your free account →
Prerequisites
This tutorial assumes you have OpenClaw installed and running. If not, get OpenClaw first.
Create Your Expanso Cloud Account
Expanso Cloud is required to use expanso-edge. It handles authentication, pipeline validation, and deployment orchestration. The free tier is generous—no credit card needed.
1.1 Sign up for free
Create your account at cloud.expanso.io:
open https://cloud.expanso.io/signup
1.2 Install the Expanso CLI
Once you have an account, install the CLI tools:
curl -fsSL https://get.expanso.io/edge/install.sh | bash
expanso-edge --version
# expanso-edge v1.x.x
1.3 Connect your machine to Cloud
Get your bootstrap token from the Cloud dashboard, then authenticate:
expanso-edge bootstrap --token "exso_bt_your_token_here"
# ✓ Connected to Expanso Cloud
# ✓ Node registered: your-machine-name
Why Cloud? Expanso Cloud provides pipeline validation, secret management, scheduling, monitoring, and team collaboration. Your credentials and data still stay local—Cloud just orchestrates.
Account ready? Let's build a pipeline
Build and Validate a Pipeline
Create your first pipeline and validate it against Expanso Cloud before running.
2.1 Create a simple pipeline
Save this as hello-pipeline.yaml:
input:
generate:
count: 1
mapping: |
root.message = "Hello from Expanso!"
root.timestamp = now()
pipeline:
processors:
- mapping: |
root = this
root.processed = true
output:
stdout: {}
2.2 Validate with Cloud
Check your pipeline syntax before running:
expanso-cli job validate hello-pipeline.yaml --offline
# ✓ Pipeline syntax valid
2.3 Run locally
Test your pipeline on your machine:
expanso-edge run --config hello-pipeline.yaml
# {"message":"Hello from Expanso!","timestamp":"2025-...","processed":true}
Browse ready-made pipelines: We have 172 pre-built pipelines for common tasks like email triage, Stripe reports, and DevOps monitoring.
Browse the catalog →
Pipeline working? Let's deploy it
Deploy to Production
Deploy your pipeline with scheduling, monitoring, and team access via Expanso Cloud.
3.1 Deploy your pipeline
Deploy your pipeline to run on your edge node:
expanso-cli job deploy hello-pipeline.yaml
# ✓ Pipeline deployed: hello-pipeline
# ✓ Job ID: job-abc123
3.2 Monitor your jobs
Check status and view logs:
expanso-cli job list
expanso-cli job describe job-abc123
expanso-cli job logs job-abc123
Secrets stay local: Your API keys (OpenAI, Stripe, etc.) are stored in environment variables on your edge node. Cloud never sees them—it only sends pipeline configs.
Final step: connect to OpenClaw
Connect to Your AI Assistant
Add the Expanso MCP server to OpenClaw, Claude Desktop, or any MCP-compatible client.
4.1 For OpenClaw
Register the Expanso MCP server:
expanso-cli mcp add npx @expanso/mcp-pipelines
4.2 For Claude Desktop
Add to your claude_desktop_config.json:
{
"mcpServers": {
"expanso-pipelines": {
"command": "npx",
"args": ["@expanso/mcp-pipelines"],
"env": {
"EXPANSO_API_KEY": "your-api-key-here"
}
}
}
}
4.3 Available MCP Tools
Once connected, your AI assistant can use these tools:
validate_pipeline → Validate pipeline YAML
create_pipeline → Generate pipeline from template
deploy_pipeline → Deploy to Expanso Cloud
list_pipelines → List deployed pipelines
list_skills → Browse 170+ pre-built skills
Security: Your API keys (OpenAI, Slack, Stripe, etc.) are stored in environment variables on your machine. The MCP server reads them locally—they're never sent to the AI.
You're All Set! 🎉
Browse our catalog of 172 ready-to-use pipelines, or build your own.
