Getting OpenClaw To Fetch News

Introduction

Once OpenClaw can search the web, one of the most useful things you can make it do is fetch the news for you.

This can be as simple as asking it for the latest headlines whenever you want, or as practical as having it send you a morning briefing every day. The important part is to test the news fetching manually first, then only automate it once you know OpenClaw understands what kind of news you want.

In this post, I want to show you how to test news fetching in OpenClaw, add it as a cron job through the OpenClaw Dashboard, and test that the cron job works properly.

[!NOTE] ℹ️ Note This tutorial assumes you already have OpenClaw set up and connected to a search provider. If you are using SearXNG, you can follow my SearXNG setup guide first.

What You Need

Before starting, make sure you have:

• A working OpenClaw setup
• A working Search provider
• Access to the OpenClaw Dashboard
• A chat channel connected to OpenClaw, such as Telegram or Discord

The chat channel is important because scheduled news updates are much more useful when OpenClaw can send the result to you directly.

Testing News Fetching

Before setting up any automation, we should first make sure OpenClaw can fetch news manually.

Open your OpenClaw chat and ask something simple:

Search the web for the latest AI news today and summarize the top 5 stories.

If your search provider is working, OpenClaw should search the web and return a summary with current news items.

You can make the request more specific depending on what you care about:

Search the web for the latest news about AI agents today. Summarize the top 5 stories with links.

or:

Search the web for the latest technology news today. Give me a short morning briefing.

What we are checking here is not just whether OpenClaw can search. We also want to check whether the result is useful enough to receive automatically.

Good news fetching should include:

• The topic you asked for
• Short summaries
• Source links
• A clear date or time context
• No old articles presented as today’s news

[!TIP] 💡 Tip If the result is too broad, make your prompt narrower. For example, instead of asking for “latest news”, ask for “latest AI startup funding news today”.

Testing the final news prompt

Once you are happy with the result, write the exact prompt you want the cron job to run.

For example:

Search the web for the latest AI news today. Pick the 5 most important stories, summarize each one in 2 sentences, include the source link, and send it as a clean morning briefing.

Send this prompt manually one more time.

If the response looks good, copy the prompt somewhere safe for the next step.

[!WARNING] ⚠️ Test Before Automating Do not create the cron job before testing the prompt manually. A vague prompt can easily become a vague daily message.

Adding A Cron Job Through The Dashboard

Now that the news prompt works, we can turn it into a scheduled task.

Start from your Terminal and launch the OpenClaw Dashboard:

openclaw dashboard

This should bring you to the dashboard. From there, the flow is:

1. Open OpenClaw Dashboard
2. Go to Cron jobs
3. Click +New
4. Add the prompt you tested earlier in the top text box
5. Add the cron job name in the bottom text box
6. Choose when it should run
7. Choose how the cron job runs, such as notify, silent, or independent
8. Click Create

The run mode decides what OpenClaw does with the cron job result:

• Notify runs the job and sends you the result as a message
• Silent runs the job without sending you a notification
• Independent runs the job as its own background task, separate from your current chat

For a news briefing, I recommend notify because the whole point is to receive the summary when it is ready.

For example:

Daily AI News Briefing

For the prompt, paste your tested news prompt:

Search the web for the latest AI news today. Pick the 5 most important stories, summarize each one in 2 sentences, include the source link, and send it as a clean morning briefing.

Then set the schedule.

For a daily morning briefing, you might set it to run every day at:

08:00

[!NOTE] ℹ️ Note Make sure the schedule uses the timezone you expect. If the dashboard uses your server timezone, 8 AM on the server may not be 8 AM where you live. If you are running OpenClaw on your own computer and shut it down at night, the cron job will run the next time OpenClaw starts.

Choosing the output channel

If OpenClaw asks where to send the result, choose the chat channel you normally use.

For example:

• Telegram
• Discord
• Dashboard notification

I recommend using the same channel you used while testing manually. That way, you know the message format and delivery path already works.

Getting and setting the Telegram chat ID

If you use Telegram, OpenClaw may ask for a chat ID so it knows where to send the cron job result.

The easiest way is to ask your OpenClaw bot in Telegram:

What is my Telegram chat ID?

If OpenClaw can read the Telegram message metadata, it should reply with the chat ID. Paste that value into the chat ID field in the cron job output settings.

If that does not work, use a Telegram helper bot such as @userinfobot or @RawDataBot. Open Telegram, search for one of those bots, start it, and it should show your user ID. For a direct chat between you and your OpenClaw bot, that user ID is usually the chat ID you need.

[!TIP] 💡 Tip If you are sending the briefing to a Telegram group, ask the OpenClaw bot for the chat ID from inside that group. If it cannot answer, add @RawDataBot to the group briefly. Group chat IDs are usually negative numbers. Remove the helper bot after copying the ID.

Testing The Cron Job

After creating the cron job, do not wait until tomorrow to find out whether it works.

Use the cron job’s Run button to test it immediately.

After clicking Run, check whether OpenClaw sends the news briefing to your selected channel.

If it works, you should receive something similar to the manual test response, but triggered automatically.

Checking cron job logs

If the message does not arrive, go back to the OpenClaw Dashboard and open the cron job logs.

Look for:

• Whether the job actually ran
• Whether the search provider returned results
• Whether the message failed to send
• Whether the prompt caused an error

If the job did not run, check the schedule and timezone.

If the search failed, test your search provider again with a manual prompt.

If the message failed to send, check your chat channel connection.

[!TIP] 💡 Tip For the first few tests, keep the prompt short. Once the cron job is working reliably, you can make the briefing more detailed.

Troubleshooting

OpenClaw returns old news

Make the date requirement clearer in your prompt:

Search the web for news published today. Do not include old articles unless they were updated today.

You can also ask OpenClaw to include publication dates in the briefing.

The briefing is too long

Limit the number of stories and the length of each summary:

Pick only the top 3 stories. Summarize each story in 2 sentences.

The cron job runs but sends nothing

Check whether the cron job has an output channel selected. If it does, test the same channel manually by asking OpenClaw to send you a short message.

The cron job runs at the wrong time

Check the timezone used by your OpenClaw setup. Local dashboard time, server time, and container time can be different.

Conclusion

With a working news prompt and a scheduled cron job, OpenClaw can now fetch the news for you automatically.

Start with one simple briefing first. Once that works reliably, you can create separate cron jobs for different topics, such as AI news, business news, local news, or anything else you want OpenClaw to keep track of.