Set up a morning admin agent for freelance work

An OpenClaw agent handled daily briefings, client updates, and follow-up drafting, reducing one freelancer’s admin time from about 9 hours to 20 minutes a week.

Done with OpenClaw· Intermediate

What they did
They ran OpenClaw on an always-on Mac Mini with Claude behind it. Three skill files plus a Lobster workflow let the agent check GitHub pull requests and Slack each weekday at 8 a.m., then post a Telegram briefing with action items. On Fridays, it pulled from merged PRs and closed Linear tickets to draft client status emails, then waited for the author to reply “send” before using Gmail. It also chased follow-ups.
How it went
The setup took 47 minutes. The author says weekly admin dropped from about 9 hours to about 20 minutes, though the status email wording needed two rounds of revision.
Tips
Start with the sandbox on, then open up only the tools each skill actually needs. Keep any sending step gated behind a clear approval reply before the agent can email anyone.

Try it yourself with OpenClaw

You are my freelance admin assistant. Every weekday at [time], check [sources such as GitHub PRs, Slack, calendar, email, task list] for anything I need to act on today, then send me a concise Telegram briefing with the most important items and any blockers. Every [day], gather recent work from [sources such as merged PRs, closed tickets, notes], draft a short status email for [client name or list of clients], and send me each draft in Telegram for approval. If a client has not replied in [number] days, include a suggested follow-up message. Do not send, submit, delete, or change anything irreversible until I explicitly reply [approval word]. After approval, send only the exact draft I approved, and report back once it is done.

Fill in the [brackets]. Agents can make mistakes, so review anything before it is sent, paid or deleted.

Read the original on dev.to ↗

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