In preparation for a lightning talk I’m giving at PyCon US this afternoon (https://us.pycon.org/2026/schedule/presentation/175/) I decided to figure out how many names OpenClaw has actually had since that first commit (https://github.com/openclaw/openclaw/commit/f6dd362d39b8e30bd79ef7560aab9575712ccc11) back in November.

Thanks to this first_line_history.py tool (https://tools.simonwillison.net/python/#first_line_historypy) (code here (https://github.com/simonw/tools/blob/main/python/first_line_history.py)) the answer, according to the Git history of the OpenClaw README, is:

Warelay → CLAWDIS → CLAWDBOT → Clawdbot → Moltbot →🦞 OpenClaw

Or in detail (the output from the tool):

2025-11-24T11:23:15+01:00 16dfc1 (https://github.com/openclaw/openclaw/commit/16dfc1) # Warelay — WhatsApp Relay CLI (Twilio) 2025-11-24T11:41:37+01:00 d4153d (https://github.com/openclaw/openclaw/commit/d4153d) # 📡 Warelay — WhatsApp Relay CLI (Twilio) 2025-11-24T17:47:57+01:00 343ef9 (https://github.com/openclaw/openclaw/commit/343ef9) # 📡 warelay — WhatsApp Relay CLI (Twilio) 2025-11-25T04:44:10+01:00 14b3c6 (https://github.com/openclaw/openclaw/commit/14b3c6) # 📡 warelay — WhatsApp Relay CLI 2025-11-25T12:48:40+01:00 481402 (https://github.com/openclaw/openclaw/commit/481402) # 📡 warelay — Send, receive, and auto-reply on WhatsApp—Twilio-backed or QR-linked. 2025-11-25T13:50:18+01:00 d51a3e (https://github.com/openclaw/openclaw/commit/d51a3e) # warelay 📡 - Send, receive, and auto-reply on WhatsApp via Twilio or QR-linked WhatsApp Web; webhook setup in one command 2025-11-25T13:51:13+01:00 4d2a8a (https://github.com/openclaw/openclaw/commit/4d2a8a) # 📡 warelay — Send, receive, and auto-reply on WhatsApp—Twilio-backed or QR-linked. 2025-11-25T14:52:43+01:00 1ef7f4 (https://github.com/openclaw/openclaw/commit/1ef7f4) # 📡 warelay — Send, receive, and auto-reply on WhatsApp. 2025-12-03T15:45:32+00:00 a27ee2 (https://github.com/openclaw/openclaw/commit/a27ee2) # 🦞 CLAWDIS — WhatsApp Gateway for AI Agents 2025-12-08T12:43:13+01:00 17fa2f (https://github.com/openclaw/openclaw/commit/17fa2f) # 🦞 CLAWDIS — WhatsApp & Telegram Gateway for AI Agents 2025-12-19T18:41:17+01:00 771043 (https://github.com/openclaw/openclaw/commit/771043) # 🦞 CLAWDIS — Personal AI Assistant 2026-01-04T14:32:47+00:00 246ada (https://github.com/openclaw/openclaw/commit/246ada) # 🦞 CLAWDBOT — Personal AI Assistant 2026-01-10T05:14:09+01:00 cdb915 (https://github.com/openclaw/openclaw/commit/cdb915) # 🦞 Clawdbot — Personal AI Assistant 2026-01-27T13:37:47-05:00 3fe4b2 (https://github.com/openclaw/openclaw/commit/3fe4b2) # 🦞 Moltbot — Personal AI Assistant 2026-01-30T03:15:10+01:00 9a7160 (https://github.com/openclaw/openclaw/commit/9a7160) # 🦞 OpenClaw — Personal AI Assistant

Tags: openclaw (https://simonwillison.net/tags/openclaw), git (https://simonwillison.net/tags/git), tools (https://simonwillison.net/tags/tools)