OpenClaw Daily Briefing: How to Set Up Your Morning Summary

The OpenClaw daily briefing is one of the most immediately valuable configurations you can set up. Every morning at a time you choose, your agent compiles your day's schedule, weather, flagged emails, news in your areas of interest, and any urgent tasks — then delivers a crisp summary to your Telegram (or Discord, or Slack). Here's exactly how to build it.

The Briefing Formula

An effective morning briefing includes:

1. Today's calendar: Meetings and deadlines
2. Weather: Current conditions and day forecast
3. Priority emails: Unread messages that need attention
4. News digest: Topics you care about (customizable)
5. Tasks: Open to-dos and deadlines from today

This can all be summarized in 300–500 words and read in under 2 minutes.

Required Skills

python -m openclaw skill install google-calendar
python -m openclaw skill install weather
python -m openclaw skill install gmail-manager
python -m openclaw skill install web-search  # for news
python -m openclaw skill install todoist     # or notion, or obsidian

Configuring the Briefing

In openclaw.json:

{
  "scheduler": {
    "timezone": "America/New_York",
    "tasks": [{
      "name": "morning_briefing",
      "cron": "0 7 * * 1-5",
      "action": "run",
      "prompt": "Generate my morning briefing. Include: 1) Today's calendar events with times, 2) Current weather for San Francisco with today's forecast, 3) Unread priority emails (only from my priority senders list), 4) Top 3 headlines in AI and technology from the past 24 hours, 5) Any overdue tasks from Todoist. Format clearly with emoji headers for each section.",
      "output_channel": "telegram"
    }]
  }
}

Customize the cron expression for your preferred time, timezone, and days. 0 7 * * 1-5 means 7 AM Monday–Friday.

Customizing for Your Needs

For executives: Include a people section summarizing who you're meeting with and key context about each.

For remote workers: Add timezone conversions for international colleagues.

For parents: Add school events and after-school schedules.

For traders/investors: Add portfolio performance and relevant market news.

Sample Briefing Output

☀️ Good morning! Tuesday, May 7th

📅 TODAY'S CALENDAR
• 9:30 AM — Team standup (Zoom)
• 1:00 PM — Client call with Acme Corp
• 4:00 PM — 1:1 with Marcus

🌤️ WEATHER: San Francisco
  Currently 58°F, partly cloudy
  High 65°F, low 52°F — no rain

📧 PRIORITY EMAILS (2 unread)
  → Sarah Chen: Q2 budget review needed by Friday [URGENT]
  → John Smith: Contract renewal question

📰 AI & TECH NEWS
  → OpenAI releases GPT-5 benchmark results
  → EU AI Act enforcement begins this month
  → DeepSeek V4 announced

✅ OVERDUE TASKS
  → Finish Q2 presentation slides (due yesterday)

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I get an evening briefing instead?

Absolutely. Change the cron expression: 0 18 * * 1-5 for 6 PM weekdays. An evening briefing summarizing what happened and what's coming tomorrow is equally popular.

Can the briefing be conversational rather than formatted?

Yes — modify the prompt to request a conversational paragraph format instead of sections with headers. Some users prefer a more natural narrative briefing.

How do I handle time zones for the scheduler?

Set "timezone" in the scheduler config to your local timezone (use IANA format, e.g., "Europe/London", "Asia/Singapore"). The cron times are interpreted in that timezone.