Quickstart

The first install takes 4 to 5 minutes, most of it the image push.

Before you start

Node 22.18 or later.
Docker, running.
A Cloudflare account on Workers Paid.
A terminal.

Install

Get the CLI
```
npm install -g oc-workers
```
This puts ochost on your PATH. If root owns your global npm folder, it can need sudo. Check with ochost --version.
Log in to Cloudflare
```
npx wrangler login
```
Select Allow in the browser that opens. On a machine with no browser, wrangler prints a URL: open it on another machine, then select Allow.
Run init
```
mkdir ~/my-oc && cd ~/my-oc
ochost init
```
init asks for no AI token, because the model runs on your account through the Worker’s Workers AI binding.
Once the install is up, init asks two questions. Press Enter to skip either one:
- Telegram: paste the bot token from @BotFather (see Add Telegram).
- Cloudflare Access: a hostname on your zone, such as oc.example.com.
Alerts to your phone are optional; ochost alerts setup adds them later.
For a script or a rerun, the same answers work as flags: ochost init --telegram-owner <id> --telegram-token-file <file> --sandbox on --alerts ntfy --access-domain oc.example.com.

Open the Control UI

At the end, init prints a summary:

UI     https://oc-host.<your-subdomain>.workers.dev
Login  https://oc-host.<your-subdomain>.workers.dev/_ochost/login/…  (single use, 5 min; ochost open makes another)
Bot    none yet
Model  @cf/deepseek-ai/deepseek-v4.1-flash-1017 via gateway default
Mode   sleeps after 5 min idle, wakes on a message
Cost   about $7-14/month at light use (up to $25 if snapshot storage is priced high); always-on would be $50-69

Open the Login link. It sets the owner cookie, which tells the install that this browser is yours, and shows the owner console. Select Open Control UI to reach the OpenClaw Control UI.

The link works once and expires after 5 minutes. If it has expired, run ochost open for a new one.

The owner console

The owner console is the page at your install URL. A state card at the top shows the state, the last activity, the next wake, the projected cost for the month and the check count, with one state button: Wake now, Sleep now, Start or Retry now. Below it, three tabs hold Overview (cost, alerts, budgets, checks and backups), Alerts and log, and Setup (things to connect). See How it works.

Prompts from init

Most runs show one prompt or none.

Prompt	When	Do this
`Cloudflare account [1-N]`	Your login has several accounts.	Type a number, or pass `--account-id`.
`Press Enter when R2 is on`	R2 is off.	Enable R2 at the dashboard link, then press Enter.
workers.dev subdomain name	The account has no workers.dev subdomain.	Type a name.

With --non-interactive, or with no terminal, init asks nothing. When it needs an answer, it stops with a fix line.

The model

The container holds no Cloudflare credential: the Worker calls Workers AI through a binding (see Models), and it sends model calls through the AI Gateway default. Cloudflare makes default on the first request, so init makes no API call for it. After the deploy, init sends one test message to the model.

To use a gateway you made, run ochost init --gateway <id>. The gateway must exist.
To use no gateway, run ochost init --gateway none. Model calls still work, but with no logs and no spend limit.

What init does

init prints one line for each of its 14 steps: preflight, account, subdomain, files, AI model, secrets, R2 bucket, deploy, health, model hop, config, start, self-test and login. The deploy step takes longest.

If init stops

Rerun ochost init in the same directory. A rerun is safe: it skips what is already current.

If a stop leaves the deploy part-way done, you see a Failed: line with a fix and no summary, and a rerun finishes the deploy. If the image push keeps failing, run ochost deploy; the CLI keeps the layers it already pushed. See Troubleshooting.

A rerun can wake a sleeping install, and it redeploys when the deploy hash changed.

Add Telegram

In Telegram, open a chat with @BotFather, Telegram’s own bot for making bots.
Send /newbot and follow the steps. BotFather gives you a bot token.
Run ochost channels add telegram and paste the token. The input is hidden. (init offers this step; if you took it, skip to 4.)
In Telegram, open your bot and send it a text message.
The bot replies with a pairing code. Run ochost pairing approve telegram <code>.

A webhook channel lets the install sleep. A socket channel keeps it awake and costs about five times more. See Channels.

Run ochost status to see the sleep state, the next wake and the cost.
Run ochost doctor to run health checks. Each check comes with a fix.
Run ochost alerts setup to choose where alerts go. Alerts are off by default.
Read Channels next.