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Overview

Integrate CodeAlive with OpenClaw to give your personal AI agent deep contextual understanding of your entire codebase. OpenClaw supports MCP natively, so CodeAlive tools are available out of the box.
Quick install: Run npx @codealive/installer to automatically configure CodeAlive for OpenClaw. See the Installation Guide for details.

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Prerequisites

  • OpenClaw installed and running
  • CodeAlive account
  • At least one repository added in your CodeAlive dashboard
  • CodeAlive API key (Sign up here)
  • Indexed repositories in your CodeAlive dashboard

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Installation

1

Add a repository and get your API key

Add at least one repository in your CodeAlive dashboard, then get your API key from app.codealive.ai/settings/api-keys.
2

Add MCP Server to openclaw.json

Edit your OpenClaw configuration file at ~/.openclaw/openclaw.json and add the CodeAlive MCP server under agents.main.mcpServers:Remote HTTP (recommended):
{
  "agents": {
    "main": {
      "mcpServers": {
        "codealive": {
          "transport": "streamable-http",
          "url": "https://mcp.codealive.ai/api",
          "headers": {
            "Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_API_KEY_HERE"
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }
}
Docker (STDIO):
{
  "agents": {
    "main": {
      "mcpServers": {
        "codealive": {
          "command": "docker",
          "args": [
            "run", "--rm", "-i",
            "-e", "CODEALIVE_API_KEY=YOUR_API_KEY_HERE",
            "ghcr.io/codealive-ai/codealive-mcp:main"
          ]
        }
      }
    }
  }
}
Replace YOUR_API_KEY_HERE with your actual API key.
OpenClaw uses JSON5 format — comments and trailing commas are allowed in the config file.
3

Restart OpenClaw

OpenClaw watches openclaw.json for changes and applies them automatically. If the server doesn’t pick up the new config, restart it.
4

Verify Integration

Ask OpenClaw:
  • “What CodeAlive repositories are available?”
  • “Search for authentication code in my codebase”

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Available Tools

Once connected, OpenClaw can use these CodeAlive tools:
ToolDescription
semantic_searchCanonical semantic search across indexed repositories
grep_searchExact text or regex search with line-level previews
chatSlower synthesized codebase Q&A, usually after search
codebase_searchDeprecated legacy semantic search alias
fetch_artifactsRetrieve full source code for search results
get_artifact_relationshipsExpand call graph, inheritance, and references for one artifact
codebase_consultantDeprecated alias for chat
get_data_sourcesList available repositories and workspaces, optionally relevance-filtered by a task query

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Installing the CodeAlive Skill

For workflow guidance and multi-step exploration patterns, also install the CodeAlive skill: 
npx skills add CodeAlive-AI/codealive-skills@codealive-context-engine
Or manually copy the skill to OpenClaw’s skills directory:
ScopePath
Projectskills/codealive-context-engine/
User~/.openclaw/skills/codealive-context-engine/
The skill and MCP server complement each other: the MCP server provides tool access, the skill teaches the agent effective query patterns and cost-aware workflows.

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Publishing to ClawHub

The CodeAlive Context Engine skill is also available on ClawHub, OpenClaw’s skill marketplace: 
openclaw skills install codealive-context-engine

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Troubleshooting

  1. Verify your API key is correct
  2. Check that openclaw.json is valid JSON5 (watch for syntax errors)
  3. Ensure "transport": "streamable-http" is set for the remote option
  4. Check OpenClaw logs for MCP initialization errors
  1. Confirm the codealive entry is inside agents.main.mcpServers
  2. Restart OpenClaw if config auto-reload didn’t trigger
  3. Verify the API key has not expired
Ensure Docker is installed and running:
docker pull ghcr.io/codealive-ai/codealive-mcp:main
For more solutions, see the Troubleshooting Guide.

MCP Overview

Learn about Model Context Protocol

Skills & Plugins

Install CodeAlive as an agent skill

OpenClaw Docs

Official OpenClaw documentation

ClawHub

OpenClaw skill marketplace