NetClaw - An OpenClaw AI Agent that Claws Through Your Network
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FLAGSHIP PROJECT / OPEN SOURCEMeet
Meet
NetClaw.
An AI agent that claws through your network.
A place to explore what network operations can become when agents, infrastructure, and open-source engineering come together.
NEW CONVERSATION / OCTOBER 30, 2026
More Packet Pushers appearances →NetClaw on Heavy Networking.
OFFICIAL AAIF BLOG / OCTOBER 14, 2026A milestone for NetClaw.
A milestone for NetClaw.
And for the people building it.
The Linux Foundation’s Agentic AI Foundation has published my story of eighteen months building with MCP, from the first experiments to NetClaw on stage in Toronto.
Twenty-one years after a free Ubuntu CD got me started, sharing this work through AAIF is a personal honour. It belongs to the creators, maintainers, enterprises, and Itential colleagues who helped bring NetClaw this far.
THE INTERNET-DRAFT / AGENT FEDERATIONIndependent agents.
Independent agents.
A shared protocol.
NetClaw-to-NetClaw Federation lets independently operated network agents discover capabilities, invoke tools, and delegate tasks across operator boundaries.
draft-capobianco-ncfed-00
By John Capobianco, Nicholas Calcutti, and Byrn Baker. An individual Internet-Draft with intended Experimental status, open for review and development.
NETCLAW MOBILE / iPHONE · iPAD · APPLE WATCH
Your network. In your pocket.
Talk to your own NetClaw Border, review actions, and receive answers on the go. The companion app connects to the Border you host; set up your Border first, then enroll your device.
FROM IDEA TO INFRASTRUCTURE
Follow the build.
01 / UNDERSTAND
Read the docs.
Start with the project documentation, architecture, and setup guidance.
Documentation ↗02 / EXPERIMENTExplore the labs.
Look through the lab configurations and examples in the repository.
Lab environment ↗03 / CONTRIBUTEMake it better.
Follow development, report an issue, or bring a useful idea to the project.
Open issues ↗READ / WATCH / EXPLORE
NetClaw resources.
AGENTIC AI FOUNDATION / LINUX FOUNDATION
The NetClaw story on AAIF.
My MCP journey, published on the official AAIF blog on October 14, 2026. A milestone for the project and its community.
Read on AAIF ↗VISUAL STUDIO CODE / EXTENSION 0.1.1Your network workbench, beside your code.
Chat, Canvas, RAG, Testbed management, per-MCP setup and reviewed DefenseClaw/OpenShell controls inside VS Code.
Explore the extension →HERMES / NETCLAW 1.8.0Good news for Hermes users!
Protected federation, Mobile Ask Border, harness identity and recovery—with tested scope and five diagrams.
Read the update →MCP DEV SUMMIT / OCTOBER 6, 2026Eighteen months of building.
My MCP journey to Toronto: the story, seven photos, and the full presentation. Video coming soon.
Read the story →TORONTO / 47-SLIDE PDFMCP at the center.
Skills, evidence, spec-driven development, safe recovery, and federation.
Open the presentation →EXTERNAL COVERAGE / HYSEN LABSA view from outside.
An AI-assisted editorial overview of NetClaw, its installation profiles, and trade-offs. Dated September 11, 2026; use the project docs for current capabilities.
Read on Hysen Labs ↗DEMOS / TUTORIALS / LIVE BUILDS
Full video library ↗NetClaw in action.
17 videos
NetClaw with Itential Skills and MCP
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NetClaw Now Supports WebEx
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VibeOps Lounge Cisco Live 2026: NetClaw - Agentic Networking is Here
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NetClaw can now phone you! And you can phone Netclaw!
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NetClaw + Unreal Engine 5.8: I Turned a Real Cisco Network Into an interactive 3D World
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NetClaw SSHs Into a Router Live: Zero MCP. Zero API. Zero REST/NETCONF
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The Risk of NetClaws: Early look at External Netclaw2Netclaw protocol
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Mobile NetClaw for Android
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Mobile NetClaw for iPhone
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Mobile NetClaw for Apple Watch
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NetClaw Zoom Companion
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Omarchy Becomes A Network Engineer: Enter NetClaw
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NetClaw + Defense Claw Enterprise Grade Security and Guardrails for NetClaw
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Lobster Smoothie: NetClaw Now Supports Blender
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TCG086: Why Training AI to Have a Self Makes Governance Harder
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HN848: NetClaw: Your Open Source Network Assistant
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Notes from the build.
All writing ↗Connect NetClaw Mobile from the HUD
Generate an enrollment QR code in the NetClaw HUD or VS Code Mobile panel, scan it with your phone, and reconnect with the same saved device identity.
4 MIN READ
The Engineer Becomes the Agent Manager: My Techstrong TV Interview
My Techstrong TV debut with Alan Shimel, and what managing AI agents demands of engineers: clear responsibilities, meaningful evaluation, and accountability for the result.
8 MIN READ
Fourteen Ways to Build the Testbed: Dynamic Source Composition in NetClaw
Part two: NetClaw 1.14.0 brings static/dynamic testbed choice, fourteen source routes and reviewed pyATS activation to its VS Code and terminal installers.
7 MIN READ
NetClaw on Heavy Networking: An Open Source Network Assistant
Back with Ethan Banks and Drew Conry-Murray on Packet Pushers to talk NetClaw: MCP, explicit approvals, layered protection, federation, and the community building it.
2 MIN READ
From a Converted Configuration to a Migration You Can Test
How NetConverter and NetClaw can connect reviewed conversion artifacts with virtual-target rehearsals, validation and change evidence. Live conversion qualification is pending.
4 MIN READ
The Testbed Becomes Part of the Conversation: Dynamic Inventory in pyATS MCP
Part one: pyATS MCP can build an in-memory testbed from inventory systems and structured data, then make it available to its existing network automation tools.
5 MIN READ
Back on The Cloud Gambit: MCP, NetClaw, and AI Governance
My conversation with William Collins on Packet Pushers: MCP in production, NetClaw’s constitution, human oversight, model identity, and specialized decision models.
4 MIN READ
From an Ubuntu CD to the Agentic AI Foundation
Twenty-one years after a free Ubuntu CD got me started, the Linux Foundation’s Agentic AI Foundation (AAIF) is publishing my MCP and NetClaw story. A personal honour and a milestone for the project and its community.
2 MIN READ
NetClaw Comes to Visual Studio Code
A network operations workbench beside your code: NetClaw brings Chat, Canvas, RAG, Testbed management, per-MCP setup and reviewed security controls into Visual Studio Code.
11 MIN READ
Good news for Hermes users!
NetClaw 1.8.0 brings protected Hermes federation and Mobile Ask Border together, following the shared HUD work in 1.7.0. Five diagrams explain the design and its tested boundaries.
6 MIN READ
Life Before AI: The Merlin Years
86,688 lines of hand-written code, about 550 hours, and the Django detour that helped me build NetworkGPT in two weeks. What Merlin taught me—and permission to build differently now.
12 MIN READ
I Saw Something in MCP. Then I Spent 18 Months Building It.
From my first MCP server in March 2025 to MCP Dev Summit Toronto: eighteen months of building, teaching, independent convergence, and the journey to NetClaw. Photos and the full presentation included.
14 MIN READ
Give your ChatGPT Dot a real network: connecting NetClaw as an MCP plugin
Connect a locally running NetClaw to a ChatGPT Dot as an OAuth-protected MCP plugin, and let your personal assistant ask 200+ network skills for live evidence.
5 MIN READ
NetClaw and Equinix Fabric: giving an investigation its provider-side evidence
NetClaw adds two new skills for Equinix Fabric and Network Edge, backed by Equinix's official MCP server, with an explicit local approval gate for any write.
4 MIN READ
NetClaw 1.1.0: Start with a conversation. Keep the evidence.
A tour of NetClaw's Chat-first HUD, Canvas investigations and optional Jev Science Officer, illustrated with screenshots from my running Claw.
6 MIN READ
11,892 Probabilities, 48 Cents: What Happened When I Let Jev Grade All 227 of NetClaw’s Skills
TypeSafe’s Jev doesn’t write a single word back — it returns a calibrated probability in under half a second. I pointed 11,892 of those probabilities at every skill in NetClaw: what’s missing, what silently overlaps, and one bug a probabili
9 MIN READ
Twenty-Three Specs in Six Days: What Happened When I Handed NetClaw a Roadmap
I wrote down twenty-five gaps in what NetClaw could actually reach, ordered them by dependency, and set one rule: one item, one spec, one branch, no batching. Six days later twenty-three specs had merged — twelve new MCP servers, twenty-thr
25 MIN READ
My Network Agent Lives in My Pocket Now — And Nobody Is in the Middle
From an emulator Claude Code drove itself, to a real Android phone in someone else’s hands, to an iPhone talking to that Android through my own Border — voice, photos, and a live CML lab, all over NCFED. No Slack, no Discord, no Webex, no t
9 MIN READ
BISQUE: NetClaw gets a bookshelf — an offline, agentic RAG knowledge base
Introducing BISQUE — the Base of Ingested Semantic Queries for Unified Embeddings — NetClaw’s fully offline, agentic RAG knowledge base. Because the tastiest thing you can make from claws is a bisque. Uploaded a 212-page book from Slack to
5 MIN READ
Claws that prove who they are: certificate security comes to NetClaw federation
NetClaw federation used to trust a peer’s identity on its say-so, in the clear. Claw Certification adds TLS encryption and real cryptographic identity — domain-verified via Let’s Encrypt or pinned trust-on-first-use — and we cut the first c
3 MIN READ
NetClaws, Assemble: introducing N2N Federation and the NCFED protocol
NetClaw’s mesh could always tell you who was online. Now it tells you what they can do — and lets you use it. Introducing N2N Federation and NCFED, a new protocol for federating AI network engineers safely.
12 MIN READ
Giving NetClaw Eyes and Hands: From Browser Control to Full Desktop Control
Most of what NetClaw does, it does through APIs — gNMI, REST, NETCONF, GraphQL. That’s the right way to automate a network: structured, auditable, repeatable. But real networks are messy, and not everything worth touching has a clean API be
4 MIN READ
I Rebuilt a Real Cisco Network as a 3D World — Inside NetClaw’s New Unreal Engine 5.8 Integration
NetClaw can now clone a live Cisco Modeling Labs topology — gathered with pyATS — straight into a 3D world inside Unreal Engine 5.8, over the Model Context Protocol. Here’s the achievement, the vision, and (for the technically curious) ever
10 MIN READ
NetClaw + IP Fabric: Network Assurance Meets AI-Powered Automation
Announcing the integration of IP Fabric’s network assurance platform into NetClaw through 10 new MCP tools for health assessment, path analysis, visual diagrams, and API discovery. A collaboration with Daren Fulwell spanning nearly a decade
3 MIN READ
Introducing DefenseClaw: Enterprise Security for NetClaw
NetClaw Gets Enterprise Security with Cisco DefenseClaw We’re excited to announce the integration of DefenseClaw from Cisco AI Defense as the enterprise security layer for NetClaw. This represents a major upgrade to our security posture, wi
2 MIN READ
NetClaw Gets Long-Term Memory: Community Contribution Brings MemPalace Integration
NetClaw Gets Long-Term Memory: Community Contribution Brings MemPalace Integration One of the most exciting aspects of open source is when the community steps up and adds capabilities you didn’t even know you needed. Today we’re thrilled to
4 MIN READ
NetClaw Now Has Direct Access to Cisco’s Official Meraki and Catalyst Center API Documentation
NetClaw Now Has Direct Access to Cisco’s Official Meraki and Catalyst Center API Documentation Network automation with AI is powerful, but only when the AI has access to accurate, authoritative information. Today we’re excited to announce t
3 MIN READ
BREAKTHROUGH: NetClaw Brings Your Network to Life in Stunning 3D with Blender Integration!
The Future of Network Visualization Has Arrived Hold onto your console cables, network engineers — NetClaw just shattered the boundaries of what’s possible with network visualization! We’re thrilled to announce the most visually stunning in
4 MIN READ
NetClaw Adds Blender 3D Network Topology Visualization
Visualize Your Network in 3D with Blender NetClaw now integrates with Blender via the community blender-mcp server, enabling 3D network topology visualization. Network engineers can now say "draw the network topology using CDP data" and wat
3 MIN READ
NetClaw Adds Zscaler and Cloudflare: Zero Trust Security Through Natural Language
NetClaw Adds Zscaler and Cloudflare: Zero Trust Security Through Natural Language Zero trust, conversational access. NetClaw now integrates with Zscaler and Cloudflare, bringing 10 new skills for managing zero trust security, DNS, edge netw
5 MIN READ
NetClaw Adds HashiCorp Terraform and Vault: Infrastructure as Code Meets Natural Language
NetClaw Adds HashiCorp Terraform and Vault: Infrastructure as Code Meets Natural Language Infrastructure automation through conversation. NetClaw now integrates with HashiCorp Terraform Cloud and Vault, bringing 6 new skills for managing in
4 MIN READ
NetClaw Adds Splunk and Datadog: Enterprise Observability Through Natural Language
NetClaw Adds Splunk and Datadog: Enterprise Observability Through Natural Language Your logs and metrics, accessible through conversation. NetClaw now integrates with both Splunk and Datadog, bringing enterprise-grade observability to netwo
3 MIN READ
NetClaw Adds PagerDuty Integration: AI-Powered Incident Management for Network Engineers
NetClaw Adds PagerDuty Integration: AI-Powered Incident Management for Network Engineers NetClaw now speaks incident management. We’re excited to announce full PagerDuty integration, bringing 4 new skills backed by 70 tools to the NetClaw e
3 MIN READ
NetClaw Integrates Palo Alto Networks Prisma SD-WAN: Complete Fabric Visibility Through Natural Language
NetClaw Now Speaks Prisma SD-WAN We’re excited to announce that NetClaw now integrates with Palo Alto Networks Prisma SD-WAN, bringing complete fabric visibility through natural language queries. This integration adds 4 new skills backed by
3 MIN READ
The Virtual Network Trifecta: NetClaw Now Supports GNS3, CML, and ContainerLab
NetClaw now supports all three major network virtualization platforms: Cisco CML, ContainerLab, and GNS3. Here’s what we built and how to set it up.
3 MIN READ
Optimizing NetClaw’s SOUL: From 60k to 8k Characters with Modular Architecture
NetClaw’s SOUL.md grew to 60k characters — 3x the OpenClaw bootstrap limit. Here’s how we redesigned it into a modular architecture that reduced bootstrap to 8k chars while preserving 100% of content.
3 MIN READ
NetClaw Gets Jenkins, GitLab, and Atlassian Superpowers: A Human-AI Collaboration Story
NetClaw Gets Jenkins, GitLab, and Atlassian Superpowers A milestone in human-AI collaborative development Today we’re excited to announce three major integrations for NetClaw: Jenkins CI/CD, GitLab DevOps, and Atlassian ITSM (Jira + Conflue
4 MIN READ
# NetClaw Goes Spec-Driven: 5 New Capabilities, 42 New Tools, and a Constitution
*How we adopted Spec-Driven Development and built SuzieQ, Batfish, gNMI, Azure Networking, and Canvas visualizations in a single session.* — ## Part 1: The Shift to Spec-Driven Development NetClaw has always been ambitious. A CCIE-level AI
16 MIN READ
NetClaw × Cisco Webex: Your Network’s Digital Coworker Just Got Multichannel
─── What Just Happened (And Why It Matters) A few minutes ago, I was sitting in Slack — in this very channel — and I reached across to Cisco Webex and dropped a formatted message into your team space, identifying myself, my origin platform,
8 MIN READ
# The Day the Network Became Self-Aware: Building a Multi-Human, Multi-NetClaw BGP Agent Mesh
**March 1, 2026** *By John Capobianco on his 48th birthday — with NetClaw 🦞* — ## Prologue: A Different Kind of Sunday Morning Most engineers spend Sunday morning with coffee and maybe a lab they’ve been meaning to spin up for weeks. On Ma
18 MIN READ
6 days of netclaw – by netclaw
# Six Days, 82 Skills, and a Community PR: How NetClaw Went from Idea to 160 Stars Six days ago I pushed the first commit of [NetClaw](https://github.com/automateyournetwork/netclaw) — an open-source, CCIE-level AI network engineering agent
10 MIN READ
8 hours of netclaw – by netclaw
We Gave a Slack Channel Full of Engineers an AI Network Agent. Here’s What Happened. A live red-team session, a VASI BGP lab, and 30+ social engineering attempts — all in one Friday afternoon. ─── The Setup The premise was simple: drop an A
7 MIN READ
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