Simon Willison traced the naming history of the OpenClaw project from its original name 'Warelay' through several iterations to its current name, using a Git history tool he created, for a lightning talk at PyCon US.
# Warelay -> OpenClaw
Source: [https://simonwillison.net/2026/May/16/openclaw-names/](https://simonwillison.net/2026/May/16/openclaw-names/)
16th May 2026
In preparation for a lightning talk I'm giving at PyCon US[this afternoon](https://us.pycon.org/2026/schedule/presentation/175/)I decided to figure out how many names OpenClaw has*actually*had since that[first commit](https://github.com/openclaw/openclaw/commit/f6dd362d39b8e30bd79ef7560aab9575712ccc11)back in November\.
Thanks to this[first\_line\_history\.py tool](https://tools.simonwillison.net/python/#first_line_historypy)\([code here](https://github.com/simonw/tools/blob/main/python/first_line_history.py)\) the answer, according to the Git history of the OpenClaw README, is:
Warelay → CLAWDIS → CLAWDBOT → Clawdbot → Moltbot →🦞 OpenClaw
Or in detail \(the output from the tool\):
```
2025-11-24T11:23:15+01:00 16dfc1 # Warelay — WhatsApp Relay CLI (Twilio)
2025-11-24T11:41:37+01:00 d4153d # 📡 Warelay — WhatsApp Relay CLI (Twilio)
2025-11-24T17:47:57+01:00 343ef9 # 📡 warelay — WhatsApp Relay CLI (Twilio)
2025-11-25T04:44:10+01:00 14b3c6 # 📡 warelay — WhatsApp Relay CLI
2025-11-25T12:48:40+01:00 481402 # 📡 warelay — Send, receive, and auto-reply on WhatsApp—Twilio-backed or QR-linked.
2025-11-25T13:50:18+01:00 d51a3e # warelay 📡 - Send, receive, and auto-reply on WhatsApp via Twilio or QR-linked WhatsApp Web; webhook setup in one command
2025-11-25T13:51:13+01:00 4d2a8a # 📡 warelay — Send, receive, and auto-reply on WhatsApp—Twilio-backed or QR-linked.
2025-11-25T14:52:43+01:00 1ef7f4 # 📡 warelay — Send, receive, and auto-reply on WhatsApp.
2025-12-03T15:45:32+00:00 a27ee2 # 🦞 CLAWDIS — WhatsApp Gateway for AI Agents
2025-12-08T12:43:13+01:00 17fa2f # 🦞 CLAWDIS — WhatsApp & Telegram Gateway for AI Agents
2025-12-19T18:41:17+01:00 771043 # 🦞 CLAWDIS — Personal AI Assistant
2026-01-04T14:32:47+00:00 246ada # 🦞 CLAWDBOT — Personal AI Assistant
2026-01-10T05:14:09+01:00 cdb915 # 🦞 Clawdbot — Personal AI Assistant
2026-01-27T13:37:47-05:00 3fe4b2 # 🦞 Moltbot — Personal AI Assistant
2026-01-30T03:15:10+01:00 9a7160 # 🦞 OpenClaw — Personal AI Assistant
```
The article analyzes the rapid rise and fall of OpenClaw, questioning whether its popularity was genuine or hyped, and discusses its usage-based pricing model.
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