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Channels are the inbound chat and messaging surfaces on a node—Telegram, Discord, browser Control UI, and the like. Traffic for those surfaces is handled on the machine (through the gateway runtime), not by routing every message through a separate Ageneral hop. OpenClaw is the stack that provides that gateway today.

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How they fit

  • Configuration — Each channel has its own settings: tokens, pairing / DM policies, group rules, and so on. Ageneral merges what your project and node allow into the config the node applies.
  • Connectors — The connector catalog wires OAuth-backed and MCP-backed pieces; see Connectors. Channels are “which messengers and UIs this node’s gateway talks to,” not the same thing as picking a connector from the catalog.
  • Pairing — Many channels need a pairing step (for example a code in Telegram) before DMs or groups are trusted. The product can drive approve flows over a direct path to the node when needed.
Other agent stacks describe the same layer as channels or messaging—adapters into a gateway, sessions, then agents.

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OpenClaw reference

Per-channel setup, CLI, and config live in the OpenClaw docs—for example Channels (CLI) and the guides under OpenClaw documentation.