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How to Give Your OpenClaw Agent a Backend

· 5 min read
Martin
Martin
Co-Founder and Maker @ Codehooks

OpenClaw is everywhere right now. People are running "Jarvis" on Mac minis 24/7, automating their entire digital lives.

But here's the thing: OpenClaw runs locally. That's great for privacy and control. It's less great when you need:

  • REST APIs and webhooks that stay up even when your computer sleeps
  • Persistent storage beyond local files
  • Background jobs that run on a schedule
  • CRUD endpoints your other apps can talk to

You could give your agent access to AWS. Let it wire up Lambda, API Gateway, DynamoDB, and SQS. Watch it burn through your free tier and leak credentials.

Or you could give it a backend designed for agents.

Codehooks backend for OpenClaw agents

Codehooks: A backend your agent can actually use​

Codehooks.io is a serverless backend with everything wired together: REST APIs, database, queues, cron, workers. Your agent can build anything from a simple CRUD API to a multi-step workflow — and deploy it in seconds.

Here's your agent deploying a Stripe webhook handler with signature verification:

import { app, Datastore } from 'codehooks-js';
import { verify } from 'webhook-verify';

// Allow Stripe to call this without JWT auth
app.auth('/webhook/*', (req, res, next) => next());

app.post('/webhook/stripe', async (req, res) => {
  // Verify signature using rawBody (essential for HMAC validation)
  const isValid = verify('stripe', req.rawBody, req.headers, process.env.STRIPE_WEBHOOK_SECRET);
  if (!isValid) {
    return res.status(401).send('Invalid signature');
  }

  const conn = await Datastore.open();
  await conn.insertOne('payments', {
    ...req.body,
    receivedAt: new Date().toISOString()
  });
  res.json({ received: true });
});

export default app.init();
coho deploy  # live in seconds

That's a production webhook endpoint with signature verification and persistent storage. Your agent could just as easily deploy a CRUD API, a data pipeline, or a scheduled report — same workflow, same coho deploy.

Your agent already knows how to use it​

Run coho prompt and you get the complete development prompt — REST routes, CRUD patterns, database operations, queue workers, and workflow examples. Feed it into context and your OpenClaw can build any backend feature without hallucinating.

coho prompt | pbcopy  # copy to clipboard on macOS

This is what "AI-friendly" actually means: not a buzzword, but a structured prompt that lets agents build correctly on the first try.

Why this matters for OpenClaw​

1. APIs and webhooks that don't depend on your device​

Your OpenClaw agent runs on your Mac mini. But what happens when Stripe sends a payment webhook at 3am and your machine is updating macOS? Missed event. What about the CRUD API your mobile app depends on? Down.

With Codehooks, your endpoints live in the cloud. Your agent deploys them, and they stay up whether your Mac is awake or not.

2. Sandboxed integrations​

Security researchers have called OpenClaw "a security nightmare" — and they're not wrong. An agent with full system access is powerful but risky.

Offloading sensitive integrations (payment webhooks, API keys, customer data) to a separate backend limits the blast radius. Your agent interacts with the backend via API, not raw credentials scattered across your machine.

3. Background jobs your agent doesn't have to babysit​

Need a daily digest? Weekly report? Hourly data sync? Define it once:

import { app } from 'codehooks-js';

app.job('0 9 * * *', async () => {
  // runs every day at 9am, whether your agent is awake or not
});

export default app.init();

Need async processing too? Add a worker queue alongside your cron jobs:

import { app, Datastore } from 'codehooks-js';

app.worker('notify', async (req, res) => {
  console.log('Sending notification:', req.body.payload);
  // process the task...
  res.end();
});

app.post('/enqueue', async (req, res) => {
  const conn = await Datastore.open();
  await conn.enqueue('notify', req.body);
  res.json({ queued: true });
});

export default app.init();

4. Fast enough for the agent loop​

Deploys take seconds, not minutes. Your agent can:

  1. Run coho prompt to load context
  2. Write code
  3. Deploy with coho deploy
  4. Check logs with coho log -f
  5. Iterate

Something break? Your agent reads the logs, fixes the code, and redeploys — all in the same loop. No rollback ceremony, no CloudFormation stacks. Just fix and ship.

Get your agent set up in 2 minutes​

We've published a Codehooks skill for OpenClaw that bundles everything your agent needs — context, examples, and CLI commands:

→ codehooks-backend skill on GitHub

You do this once:

npm install -g codehooks
coho login
coho create openclaw-backend
cd openclaw-backend
npm install codehooks-js
coho add-admintoken

Give the admin token to your agent. From here, it can deploy code, query data, and manage the backend on its own using coho deploy --admintoken $CODEHOOKS_ADMIN_TOKEN.

Your agent can also start from a ready-made template:

coho create my-webhooks --template stripe-webhook-handler
cd my-webhooks
npm install codehooks-js
coho deploy

Either way, your agent now has a live webhook URL, a database, queues, and cron — all deployable in seconds.

What you'll have running tonight​

Set aside 10 minutes. By the end you'll have:

  • REST APIs and webhooks that stay up 24/7
  • A database your agent can read and write to
  • Cron jobs and queues running in the background
  • An agent that can deploy, debug, and iterate on all of it without your help

Your Mac mini runs OpenClaw. Codehooks runs everything else.

A note on responsibility: Giving your agent the ability to deploy and run code on a live server is powerful — and risky. Review what your agent deploys, set appropriate permissions, and monitor usage. You're responsible for any code your agent ships. The good news: Codehooks has no pay-per-use pricing, so a busy agent won't surprise you with a bill.

→ Get started free

Learn more​