Building Workflows You Can Run Again and Again

A task is something you ask OpenClaw to do once. A workflow is something you set up once and run repeatedly. The distinction matters because a lot of the time we spend on routine work is not on thinking - it is on doing the same sequence of steps over and over.

This tutorial teaches you how to design, test, and save workflows so you can stop re-describing things you have already figured out.

What makes something a good workflow candidate

Ask yourself three questions:

1. Do I do this more than once a week?
2. Does it follow a predictable sequence of steps?
3. Would it take me more than 10 minutes to do it manually?

If the answer is yes to all three, it is probably worth building a workflow for.

Some examples:

• Morning briefing: check email, check calendar, give me a summary of what the day looks like
• Weekly status report: pull notes from the week, summarize progress on each active project
• Project kickoff: create a folder structure, make a template document, draft a first email to the client
• Research brief: search a topic, summarize what you find, save it as a file in a specific folder

The anatomy of a good workflow description

A workflow description tells OpenClaw not just what to do but the order, the conditions, and the expected output.

Here is a simple one:

Morning Briefing Workflow:

1. Check my inbox and list any emails that arrived since 5pm yesterday,
   grouped by sender. Flag any that look time-sensitive.

2. Check my calendar for today and list every event with the time,
   title, and whether there is a video link attached.

3. Look at my task list in /Documents/Tasks/today.md and list anything
   marked as high priority.

4. Write a summary that combines all three: urgent emails, today's
   schedule, and today's priorities. Keep it under 200 words.

Save the summary as /Documents/Briefings/YYYY-MM-DD_morning.md
using today's date in the filename.

Every step is specific. The output format is defined. The save location is clear. When you run this, you know exactly what you will get.

How to save a workflow

Once you have a workflow that works, save it somewhere you can get back to it easily. There are two good approaches:

Option 1: Save it as a text file. Keep a file called something like workflows.md in a folder OpenClaw can reach. When you want to run the workflow, you can say "run the Morning Briefing from my workflows file" and it will read the file and follow the steps.

Option 2: Store it in memory. Ask OpenClaw to remember the workflow:

Please store this as a saved workflow called "Morning Briefing":
[paste the workflow description]

In the future I will trigger it by saying "run my morning briefing."

Either approach works. The file approach is more portable. The memory approach is faster to trigger.

Testing a new workflow

Before you rely on a workflow, run it a couple of times and look at the output carefully.

Things to check:

• Did it do all the steps in the right order?
• Did the output end up where you expected?
• Is anything missing from the summary or output?
• Did it handle edge cases correctly (what if there are no emails? what if the task file is empty?)

For anything that does not work right, tell it specifically what went wrong:

Step 2 of the Morning Briefing is not including video links. The prompt
says to include whether there is a video link, but it is leaving that out.
Please fix this and update the stored workflow.

Running it a few times and fixing small things is normal. The point is to get it right once so you can run it without thinking from then on.

Adding conditions

Workflows do not have to be a fixed sequence. You can add conditions that change what happens based on what it finds.

Morning Briefing - with conditions:

1. Check my inbox. If there are any emails from the domain @hendersonmfg.com,
   add a note at the top of the briefing flagging this as a client day.
   If there are none, skip the flag.

2. Check my calendar. If I have more than 4 hours of meetings today,
   add a note saying "heavy meeting day - protect focus blocks."

3. Continue with the rest of the briefing as usual.

Conditions like these make a workflow adaptive instead of mechanical.

Three workflows worth building this week

Here are three that most people find genuinely useful:

Morning briefing - what is in my inbox, what is on my calendar, what are my priorities. Saves 10 to 15 minutes of checking and context-switching every morning.

Weekly review - runs on Friday or Sunday, looks at completed tasks, drafts a short summary of what got done, identifies anything that rolled over to next week.

Project kickoff - when you start a new project, creates the folder structure, copies your standard templates, and drafts the first client email. Takes a task that used to take 30 minutes and turns it into a 2-minute trigger.

Pick one of these and build it this week. Once you have one that runs cleanly, the others are straightforward.

The key habit to build

Whenever you find yourself doing something repetitive, pause and ask: "Could I describe this as a sequence of steps?" If yes, that is a workflow in waiting.

Most people who use OpenClaw well have between 5 and 15 workflows they run regularly. Building them one at a time, as the need comes up, is the right pace.