ClawCon SF: Cline's $1M open source grant meets OpenClaw builders

Last week, hundreds of developers descended on Frontier Tower in San Francisco for ClawCon – and it was unlike any tech event I've been to. Laptop tattoos. Lobster merch flying off tables. The kind of energy that only happens when open source builders get together to celebrate something they actually care about.

Cline co-hosted the event, and I was there representing us. Here's what happened.

What is ClawCon

ClawCon is the conference for OpenClaw, an open-source personal AI assistant created by Peter Steinberger (@steipete). If you haven't heard of it, OpenClaw is what happens when you give an AI agent full access to your computer and let it talk to you through WhatsApp, Telegram, or Discord. It manages calendars, clears inboxes, checks you in for flights, and can even write its own skills when it needs new capabilities.

The community describes it as "Jarvis, but it actually exists" and "everything Siri was supposed to be." It runs locally on your machine – your data stays yours. It's hackable, extensible, and built entirely in the open.

Sound familiar? That philosophy is exactly why Cline was there.

Why Cline co-hosted ClawCon

Cline is an open-source coding agent. OpenClaw is an open-source personal assistant. Different tools, same principles: transparency, user control, and community-driven development.

We believe the future of AI tooling isn't locked behind subscription walls or proprietary ecosystems. It's built by developers who share their work, contribute to each other's projects, and push the whole space forward together.

When the OpenClaw team reached out about co-hosting ClawCon SF, we said yes immediately. These are our people.

The event itself

The vibe was electric. As one of the organizers put it: "I don't think I've ever been to an event with so much energy and good vibes. You could really feel the electricity in the air – or maybe that was just the sound of people getting their laptops tattooed with the ClawCon logo."

Sponsors came through with serious support. Digital Ocean offered $600 in credits (promo code: CLAW). Render provided starter credits for attendees. CodeRabbit enabled free code review on any public OpenClaw repos.

And from Cline: we announced that OpenClaw projects are eligible for our $1M open source grant program.

The $1M open source grant

Earlier this year, we hit 5 million installs of Cline. To celebrate, we committed $1 million in Cline credits to fund open source projects. Not projects that integrate with Cline – just projects that are open source and genuinely useful to developers.

OpenClaw fits that description perfectly. An open-source AI assistant that runs on your infrastructure, respects your privacy, and gives you full control? That's exactly the kind of project we want to support.

Grants range from $1,000 to $10,000 in credits depending on scope. If you're building something in the OpenClaw ecosystem – a new skill, an integration, tooling for the community – you're exactly who we want to hear from.
Apply at cline.bot/oss-grant.

How to contribute to OpenClaw

If ClawCon inspired you to get involved, the Cline team put together a guide on how to contribute. Watch it here:

You can also support the project directly at github.com/sponsors/openclaw or grab some ClawCon merch at claw-con.com/merch – all proceeds support the project.

What's next

ClawCon SF was the first, but it won't be the last. The team is already planning events in other cities. If you want to sponsor or host in your area, sign up on their site.

For Cline, this is part of a larger commitment. The open source ecosystem is what makes tools like ours possible. Memory Bank, one of Cline's most popular features, was community-built. Some of our best team members started as open source contributors. We're where we are because people showed up and made things better.

Funding projects like OpenClaw is how we pay that forward.

If you're building something in the open, we want to help. Apply for the grant, share your project, or just keep building. That's how this works.

See you at the next ClawCon.

Have an open source project you're working on? Apply for our $1M grant program. Join the conversation in our Discord or on Reddit.