nanobot: Ultra-Lightweight Personal AI Assistant

🐈 nanobot is an ultra-lightweight personal AI assistant inspired by Clawdbot

⚡️ Delivers core agent functionality in just ~4,000 lines of code — 99% smaller than Clawdbot's 430k+ lines.

📏 Real-time line count: 3,428 lines (run bash core_agent_lines.sh to verify anytime)

📢 News

• 2026-02-05 ✨ Added Feishu channel, DeepSeek provider, and enhanced scheduled tasks support!
• 2026-02-04 🚀 Released v0.1.3.post4 with multi-provider & Docker support! Check release notes for details.
• 2026-02-03 ⚡ Integrated vLLM for local LLM support and improved natural language task scheduling!
• 2026-02-02 🎉 nanobot officially launched! Welcome to try 🐈 nanobot!

Key Features of nanobot:

🪶 Ultra-Lightweight: Just ~3,400 lines of core agent code — 99% smaller than Clawdbot.

🔬 Research-Ready: Clean, readable code that's easy to understand, modify, and extend for research.

⚡️ Lightning Fast: Minimal footprint means faster startup, lower resource usage, and quicker iterations.

💎 Easy-to-Use: One-click to deploy and you're ready to go.

🏗️ Architecture

✨ Features

📈 24/7 Real-Time Market Analysis	🚀 Full-Stack Software Engineer	📅 Smart Daily Routine Manager	📚 Personal Knowledge Assistant
Discovery • Insights • Trends	Develop • Deploy • Scale	Schedule • Automate • Organize	Learn • Memory • Reasoning

📦 Install

Install from source (latest features, recommended for development)

git clone https://github.com/HKUDS/nanobot.git
cd nanobot
pip install -e .

Install with uv (stable, fast)

uv tool install nanobot-ai

Install from PyPI (stable)

pip install nanobot-ai

🚀 Quick Start

Tip

Set your API key in ~/.nanobot/config.json. Get API keys: OpenRouter (LLM) · Brave Search (optional, for web search) You can also change the model to minimax/minimax-m2 for lower cost.

1. Initialize

nanobot onboard

2. Configure (~/.nanobot/config.json)

{
  "providers": {
    "openrouter": {
      "apiKey": "sk-or-v1-xxx"
    }
  },
  "agents": {
    "defaults": {
      "model": "anthropic/claude-opus-4-5"
    }
  },
  "tools": {
    "web": {
      "search": {
        "apiKey": "BSA-xxx"
      }
    }
  }
}

3. Chat

nanobot agent -m "What is 2+2?"

That's it! You have a working AI assistant in 2 minutes.

🖥️ Local Models (vLLM)

Run nanobot with your own local models using vLLM or any OpenAI-compatible server.

1. Start your vLLM server

vllm serve meta-llama/Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct --port 8000

2. Configure (~/.nanobot/config.json)

{
  "providers": {
    "vllm": {
      "apiKey": "dummy",
      "apiBase": "http://localhost:8000/v1"
    }
  },
  "agents": {
    "defaults": {
      "model": "meta-llama/Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct"
    }
  }
}

3. Chat

nanobot agent -m "Hello from my local LLM!"

Tip

The apiKey can be any non-empty string for local servers that don't require authentication.

💬 Chat Apps

Talk to your nanobot through Telegram, Discord, WhatsApp, or Feishu — anytime, anywhere.

Channel	Setup
Telegram	Easy (just a token)
Discord	Easy (bot token + intents)
WhatsApp	Medium (scan QR)
Feishu	Medium (app credentials)

Telegram (Recommended)

1. Create a bot

• Open Telegram, search @BotFather
• Send /newbot, follow prompts
• Copy the token

2. Configure

{
  "channels": {
    "telegram": {
      "enabled": true,
      "token": "YOUR_BOT_TOKEN",
      "allowFrom": ["YOUR_USER_ID"]
    }
  }
}

Get your user ID from @userinfobot on Telegram.

3. Run

nanobot gateway

Discord

1. Create a bot

• Go to https://discord.com/developers/applications
• Create an application → Bot → Add Bot
• Copy the bot token

2. Enable intents

• In the Bot settings, enable MESSAGE CONTENT INTENT
• (Optional) Enable SERVER MEMBERS INTENT if you plan to use allow lists based on member data

3. Get your User ID

• Discord Settings → Advanced → enable Developer Mode
• Right-click your avatar → Copy User ID

4. Configure

{
  "channels": {
    "discord": {
      "enabled": true,
      "token": "YOUR_BOT_TOKEN",
      "allowFrom": ["YOUR_USER_ID"]
    }
  }
}

5. Invite the bot

• OAuth2 → URL Generator
• Scopes: bot
• Bot Permissions: Send Messages, Read Message History
• Open the generated invite URL and add the bot to your server

6. Run

nanobot gateway

WhatsApp

Requires Node.js ≥18.

1. Link device

nanobot channels login
# Scan QR with WhatsApp → Settings → Linked Devices

2. Configure

{
  "channels": {
    "whatsapp": {
      "enabled": true,
      "allowFrom": ["+1234567890"]
    }
  }
}

3. Run (two terminals)

# Terminal 1
nanobot channels login

# Terminal 2
nanobot gateway

Feishu (飞书)

Uses WebSocket long connection — no public IP required.

pip install nanobot-ai[feishu]

1. Create a Feishu bot

• Visit Feishu Open Platform
• Create a new app → Enable Bot capability
• Permissions: Add im:message (send messages)
• Events: Add im.message.receive_v1 (receive messages)
  • Select Long Connection mode (requires running nanobot first to establish connection)
• Get App ID and App Secret from "Credentials & Basic Info"
• Publish the app

2. Configure

{
  "channels": {
    "feishu": {
      "enabled": true,
      "appId": "cli_xxx",
      "appSecret": "xxx",
      "encryptKey": "",
      "verificationToken": "",
      "allowFrom": []
    }
  }
}

encryptKey and verificationToken are optional for Long Connection mode. allowFrom: Leave empty to allow all users, or add ["ou_xxx"] to restrict access.

3. Run

nanobot gateway

[!TIP] Feishu uses WebSocket to receive messages — no webhook or public IP needed!

⚙️ Configuration

Config file: ~/.nanobot/config.json

Providers

Note

Groq provides free voice transcription via Whisper. If configured, Telegram voice messages will be automatically transcribed.

Provider	Purpose	Get API Key
openrouter	LLM (recommended, access to all models)	openrouter.ai
anthropic	LLM (Claude direct)	console.anthropic.com
openai	LLM (GPT direct)	platform.openai.com
deepseek	LLM (DeepSeek direct)	platform.deepseek.com
groq	LLM + Voice transcription (Whisper)	console.groq.com
gemini	LLM (Gemini direct)	aistudio.google.com

Security

Tip

For production deployments, set "restrictToWorkspace": true in your config to sandbox the agent.

Option	Default	Description
tools.restrictToWorkspace	false	When true, restricts all agent tools (shell, file read/write/edit, list) to the workspace directory. Prevents path traversal and out-of-scope access.
channels.*.allowFrom	[] (allow all)	Whitelist of user IDs. Empty = allow everyone; non-empty = only listed users can interact.

CLI Reference

Command	Description
nanobot onboard	Initialize config & workspace
nanobot agent -m "..."	Chat with the agent
nanobot agent	Interactive chat mode
nanobot gateway	Start the gateway
nanobot status	Show status
nanobot channels login	Link WhatsApp (scan QR)
nanobot channels status	Show channel status

Scheduled Tasks (Cron)

# Add a job
nanobot cron add --name "daily" --message "Good morning!" --cron "0 9 * * *"
nanobot cron add --name "hourly" --message "Check status" --every 3600

# List jobs
nanobot cron list

# Remove a job
nanobot cron remove <job_id>

🐳 Docker

Tip

The -v ~/.nanobot:/root/.nanobot flag mounts your local config directory into the container, so your config and workspace persist across container restarts.

Build and run nanobot in a container:

# Build the image
docker build -t nanobot .

# Initialize config (first time only)
docker run -v ~/.nanobot:/root/.nanobot --rm nanobot onboard

# Edit config on host to add API keys
vim ~/.nanobot/config.json

# Run gateway (connects to Telegram/WhatsApp)
docker run -v ~/.nanobot:/root/.nanobot -p 18790:18790 nanobot gateway

# Or run a single command
docker run -v ~/.nanobot:/root/.nanobot --rm nanobot agent -m "Hello!"
docker run -v ~/.nanobot:/root/.nanobot --rm nanobot status

📁 Project Structure

nanobot/
├── agent/          # 🧠 Core agent logic
│   ├── loop.py     #    Agent loop (LLM ↔ tool execution)
│   ├── context.py  #    Prompt builder
│   ├── memory.py   #    Persistent memory
│   ├── skills.py   #    Skills loader
│   ├── subagent.py #    Background task execution
│   └── tools/      #    Built-in tools (incl. spawn)
├── skills/         # 🎯 Bundled skills (github, weather, tmux...)
├── channels/       # 📱 WhatsApp integration
├── bus/            # 🚌 Message routing
├── cron/           # ⏰ Scheduled tasks
├── heartbeat/      # 💓 Proactive wake-up
├── providers/      # 🤖 LLM providers (OpenRouter, etc.)
├── session/        # 💬 Conversation sessions
├── config/         # ⚙️ Configuration
└── cli/            # 🖥️ Commands

🤝 Contribute & Roadmap

PRs welcome! The codebase is intentionally small and readable. 🤗

Roadmap — Pick an item and open a PR!

• Voice Transcription — Support for Groq Whisper (Issue #13)
• Multi-modal — See and hear (images, voice, video)
• Long-term memory — Never forget important context
• Better reasoning — Multi-step planning and reflection
• More integrations — Discord, Slack, email, calendar
• Self-improvement — Learn from feedback and mistakes

Contributors

⭐ Star History

Thanks for visiting ✨ nanobot!

_{nanobot is for educational, research, and technical exchange purposes only}