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Building AI Workflow Automation with OpenClaw: From Idea to Production

How we use OpenClaw to automate repetitive work—meetings to tickets, email triage, status updates—with human approval loops and audit trails.

AI agents are finally useful. Not because the models got smarter (though they did), but because the infrastructure got better.

At OpenClaw Labs, we use OpenClaw—an open-source agent framework—to automate the boring parts of work. Things like:

  • Turning meetings into structured actions and Jira tickets
  • Triaging email and Slack messages
  • Generating weekly status updates from GitHub, Notion, and Slack
  • Enriching sales leads and drafting first-contact emails

These aren't "AI demos." They're production workflows that save 5-10 hours per person per week.

Here's how we build them.

What Makes a Good Automation Candidate?

Not every task should be automated. We look for workflows that are:

  1. Repetitive (happens weekly or daily)
  2. Structured (clear inputs and outputs)
  3. Low-risk (if it fails, the blast radius is small)
  4. Human-in-the-loop friendly (agent proposes, human approves)

Examples that fit:

  • ✅ "Turn this meeting transcript into Jira tickets"
  • ✅ "Draft a response to this support email based on our docs"
  • ✅ "Pull GitHub commits and Notion updates, summarize into a Slack post"

Examples that don't:

  • ❌ "Decide our product roadmap"
  • ❌ "Write production code without review"
  • ❌ "Make hiring decisions"

Our Automation Stack

We use OpenClaw because:

  • Open source (you own it, no vendor lock-in)
  • Multi-tool (Slack, Gmail, Notion, Jira, GitHub, etc.)
  • Approval workflows (agents draft, humans approve)
  • Audit trails (everything is logged)

It's not the only option (you could use n8n, Zapier, Make, or custom code), but it's the best we've found for agent-driven workflows where the AI makes decisions, not just moves data.

Example 1: Meeting → Jira Tickets

The Problem: After every sprint planning or customer call, someone has to manually create Jira tickets. It takes 20-30 minutes and often gets delayed.

The Solution: An OpenClaw agent that:

  1. Watches for new meeting recordings (Google Meet, Zoom, or uploaded notes)
  2. Transcribes and extracts action items
  3. Drafts Jira tickets with title, description, assignee, and labels
  4. Posts to Slack with a "Review & Create" button

Human-in-the-loop: A team lead reviews the proposed tickets, edits if needed, and clicks "Create." The agent logs everything.

Impact: 25 minutes saved per meeting. Over a month, that's ~7 hours for a team that has 15 meetings.

How We Built It

# Simplified OpenClaw config
agent:
  name: meeting-to-jira
  triggers:
    - event: google_drive.file_created
      filter: "mimeType contains 'audio' or name contains 'Meeting Notes'"
  actions:
    - transcribe:
        provider: deepgram
    - extract:
        prompt: |
          Extract action items from this transcript.
          For each item, return: title, description, owner, priority.
    - create_draft:
        target: jira
        fields:
          project: ENG
          issue_type: Task
    - post_to_slack:
        channel: #sprint-planning
        message: "New tickets drafted from today's meeting. Review here: {link}"
        buttons:
          - label: "Approve & Create"
            action: jira.create_issues

(This is pseudocode—actual OpenClaw configs are more detailed, but this shows the structure.)

Example 2: Sales Lead Enrichment

The Problem: Sales team gets inbound leads via HubSpot. Someone has to research the company, check LinkedIn, draft a personalized first email, and update the CRM. Takes 15-20 mins per lead.

The Solution: An agent that:

  1. Watches for new leads in HubSpot
  2. Enriches data (company size, tech stack, recent news)
  3. Drafts a personalized email using the prospect's LinkedIn and our pitch
  4. Posts to Slack for sales rep approval

Human-in-the-loop: Sales rep reviews, edits, and sends (or discards).

Impact: 15 minutes → 2 minutes. Lead response time drops from 4 hours to 30 minutes.

Example 3: Weekly Status Updates

The Problem: Every Friday, managers manually pull data from GitHub (commits, PRs), Notion (docs, project updates), and Slack (key decisions). Takes 30-45 minutes.

The Solution: An agent that:

  1. Runs every Friday at 3pm
  2. Pulls data from GitHub, Notion, Slack
  3. Summarizes into a structured update (shipped, in progress, blockers)
  4. Posts to Slack and Notion

Human-in-the-loop: Manager reviews before it's shared widely. Can add context or edit tone.

Impact: 45 minutes → 5 minutes. More consistent updates.

Design Principles for Production Agents

From 30+ deployments, here's what we've learned:

1. Always include approvals

Never let an agent send an email, create a ticket, or post publicly without human review. Draft → Review → Execute.

2. Make it auditable

Log every action: what the agent saw, what it decided, what it did. When something breaks, you need to reconstruct why.

3. Design for failure

What happens if the API is down? If the prompt returns garbage? If the human doesn't respond? Build fallbacks.

4. Start narrow, then expand

Don't try to automate everything at once. Pick one workflow, make it bulletproof, then add more.

5. Measure impact

Track time saved, adoption rate, and error rate. If people stop using it, figure out why.

How We Deploy This for Clients

Our typical engagement:

  1. Week 1: Workshop to identify automation candidates
  2. Week 2-3: Build and test 1-3 agents
  3. Week 4: Handover, documentation, rollout plan

You get:

  • Working agents (OpenClaw configs + integrations)
  • Runbooks (how to maintain, debug, extend)
  • Governance model (who approves what, audit logs, access control)

Want to Automate Your Workflows?

If your team spends hours on repetitive ops work—reporting, triage, follow-ups—we can help you ship agents that actually save time.

Book a 30-min discovery call →


More on OpenClaw:
OpenClaw GitHub →
OpenClaw Docs →

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