Deploying a 24/7 AI Personal Assistant on Fly.io: The Manual Guide (and the 30-second Shortcut)

Have you ever wanted an AI assistant that doesn't just sit in a browser tab, but actually lives where you do? An assistant you can text on WhatsApp while getting groceries, or one that manages your Discord server while you sleep? That’s exactly what OpenClaw does. It’s an open-source framework that turns LLMs into autonomous agents with "memory" and "skills." But there’s a catch: to be truly useful, an agent needs to be always on. Today, I’ll show you how to host your own agent on Fly.io—and why we built a platform to make this whole process disappear. 🛠 Part 1: The Manual Setup (Fly.io) Fly.io is fantastic for hosting agents because of its persistent volumes and global edge deployment. Here is the step-by-step to get a production-ready instance running. 1. The Infrastructure First, you’ll need the flyctl CLI. We’re going to clone the OpenClaw repo and provision a volume (1GB is enough for your agent's "brain" and logs). git clone https://github.com/openclaw/openclaw.git cd openclaw #