foundry

What This Skill Does

Foundry is an advanced meta-extension designed for OpenClaw that enables the agent to function as a self-improving development environment. Unlike static extensions, Foundry possesses the ability to research its own operational documentation, analyze logs, and generate entirely new capabilities, hooks, and skills on the fly. It serves as an autonomous bridge between raw documentation and functional code, allowing OpenClaw to evolve without needing manual updates for every new requirement. By integrating with sources like arXiv, GitHub, and internal experience logs, Foundry ensures that the agent is always leveraging the latest best practices and verified patterns.

Installation

There are two primary ways to install Foundry. For most users, we recommend the standard plugin installation via the CLI. Run the following command in your terminal:

openclaw plugins install @getfoundry/foundry-openclaw

This process handles everything: downloading the source, placing it in ~/.openclaw/extensions/foundry/, and triggering a gateway restart. Alternatively, if you prefer manual configuration, you can add a plugin entry to your ~/.openclaw/openclaw.json file. Ensure you set the enabled flag to true and define the source if using a custom repository. Always verify your configuration after a manual edit to ensure the paths are correct and the gateway is properly initialized.

Use Cases

Foundry is best utilized for custom development workflows where you need OpenClaw to adapt to specific project requirements. For example, if you are working on a proprietary API, you can task Foundry with writing a custom hook to interact with that API endpoints. It is also ideal for rapid prototyping, where Foundry can generate boilerplate skill packages in seconds. Researchers can use it to ingest large amounts of documentation or papers, turning abstract theory into actionable OpenClaw tools. It excels in scenarios where iterative improvement is required, as it learns from both the successes and failures of its generated code.

Example Prompts

1. "Foundry, research the latest API documentation for the project in the current directory and write a new skill to handle authentication for these endpoints."
2. "I keep getting an error when interacting with the file system; use your experience logs to identify the pattern and write a fix as a new extension hook."
3. "Create a new browser automation skill that can log into our company dashboard and extract the daily performance metrics into a JSON file."

Tips & Limitations

Foundry is powerful, but it requires careful oversight. Because it is capable of self-modification, always keep marketplace.autoPublish set to false until you are comfortable with its output. We recommend reviewing generated code before deploying it to production environments. If Foundry encounters a persistent error, use the foundry_research tool to force it to re-examine the documentation, as this often resolves issues caused by deprecated API patterns. Remember that Foundry's ability to learn from arXiv and GitHub is a heuristic process; verify the generated logic against your project's specific constraints and security guidelines.