Amber — Give Your Agent Real Phone Capabilities

Overview

Amber gives any OpenClaw deployment real phone capabilities for agents. It ships with a production-ready Twilio + OpenAI Realtime bridge (runtime/) that lets your OpenClaw agent answer inbound calls, make outbound calls, book appointments, screen callers, and complete real-world phone tasks via natural voice conversation over a real telephone number.

✨ New in v5.4.0: Amber now ships as a Claude Desktop MCP plugin with 9 tools — make outbound calls by name, check call history, query CRM contacts, manage calendar, and control call screening, all from Claude Desktop or Claude Cowork. Includes Apple Contacts integration and a call confirmation safeguard to prevent wrong-number dials.

✨ Also: Interactive setup wizard (npm run setup) validates credentials in real-time and generates a working .env file — no manual configuration needed!

See it in action

▶️ Watch the interactive demo on asciinema.org (copyable text, adjustable speed)

The interactive wizard validates credentials, detects ngrok, and generates a complete .env file in minutes.

What's included

• Runtime bridge (runtime/) — a complete Node.js server that connects Twilio phone calls to OpenAI Realtime with OpenClaw brain-in-the-loop
• Amber Skills (amber-skills/) — modular mid-call capabilities (CRM, calendar, log & forward message) with a spec for building your own
• Built-in CRM — local SQLite contact database; Amber greets callers by name and references personal context naturally on every call
• Call log dashboard (dashboard/) — browse call history, transcripts, and captured messages; includes manual Sync button to pull new calls on demand
• Setup & validation scripts — preflight checks, env templates, quickstart runner
• Architecture docs & troubleshooting — call flow diagrams, common failure runbooks
• Safety guardrails — approval patterns for outbound calls, payment escalation, consent boundaries

🔌 Amber Skills — Extensible by Design

Amber ships with a growing library of Amber Skills — modular capabilities that plug directly into live voice conversations. Each skill exposes a structured function that Amber can call mid-call, letting you compose powerful voice workflows without touching the bridge code.

👤 CRM — Contact Memory (v5.3.0)

Amber remembers every caller across calls and uses that memory to personalize every conversation.

• Runtime-managed — lookup and logging happen automatically; Amber never has to "remember" to call CRM
• Personalized greeting — known callers are greeted by name; personal context (pets, recent events, preferences) is referenced warmly on the first sentence
• Two-pass enrichment — auto-log captures the call immediately; a post-call LLM extraction pass reads the full transcript to extract name, email, and context_notes
• Symmetric — works identically for inbound and outbound calls
• Local SQLite — stored at ~/.config/amber/crm.sqlite; no cloud, no data leaves your machine
• Native dependency — requires better-sqlite3 (native build). macOS: sudo xcodebuild -license accept before npm install. Linux: build-essential + python3.

📅 Calendar

Query the operator's calendar for availability or schedule a new event — all during a live call.

• Availability lookups — free/busy slots for today, tomorrow, this week, or any specific date
• Event creation — book appointments directly into the operator's calendar from a phone conversation
• Privacy by default — callers are only told whether the operator is free or busy; event titles, names, and locations are never disclosed
• Powered by ical-query — local-only, zero network latency

📬 Log & Forward Message

Let callers leave a message that is automatically saved and forwarded to the operator.

• Captures the caller's message, name, and optional callback number
• Always saves to the call log first (audit trail), then delivers via the operator's configured messaging channel
• Confirmation-gated — Amber confirms with the caller before sending
• Delivery destination is operator-configured — callers cannot redirect messages

Build Your Own Skills

Amber's skill system is designed to grow. Each skill is a self-contained directory with a SKILL.md (metadata + function schema) and a handler.js. You can:

• Customize the included skills to fit your own setup
• Build new skills for your use case — CRM lookups, inventory checks, custom notifications, anything callable mid-call
• Share skills with the OpenClaw community via ClawHub

See amber-skills/ for examples and the full specification to get started.

Note: Each skill's handler.js is reviewed against its declared permissions. When building or installing third-party skills, review the handler source as you would any Node.js module.

Call log dashboard

cd dashboard && node scripts/serve.js   # → http://localhost:8787

• ⬇ Sync button (green) — immediately pulls new calls from runtime/logs/ and refreshes the dashboard. Use this right after a call ends rather than waiting for the background watcher.
• ↻ Refresh button (blue) — reloads existing data from disk without re-processing logs.
• Background watcher (node scripts/watch.js) auto-syncs every 30 seconds when running.

Why Amber

• Ship a voice assistant in minutes — npm install, configure .env, npm start
• Full inbound screening: greeting, message-taking, appointment booking with calendar integration
• Outbound calls with structured call plans (reservations, inquiries, follow-ups)
• ask_openclaw tool (least-privilege) — voice agent consults your OpenClaw gateway only for call-critical needs (calendar checks, booking, required factual lookups), not for unrelated tasks
• VAD tuning + verbal fillers to keep conversations natural (no dead air during lookups)
• Fully configurable: assistant name, operator info, org name, calendar, screening style — all via env vars
• Operator safety guardrails for approvals/escalation/payment handling

Personalization requirements

Before deploying, users must personalize:

• assistant name/voice and greeting text,
• own Twilio number and account credentials,
• own OpenAI project + webhook secret,
• own OpenClaw gateway/session endpoint,
• own call safety policy (approval, escalation, payment handling).

Do not reuse example values from another operator.

5-minute quickstart

Option A: Interactive Setup Wizard (recommended) ✨

The easiest way to get started:

1. cd runtime
2. npm run setup
3. Follow the interactive prompts — the wizard will:
   • Validate your Twilio and OpenAI credentials in real-time
   • Auto-detect and configure ngrok if available
   • Generate a working .env file
   • Optionally install dependencies and build the project
4. Configure your Twilio webhook (wizard shows you the exact URL)
5. Start the server: npm start
6. Call your Twilio number — your voice assistant answers!

Benefits:

• Real-time credential validation (catch errors before you start)
• No manual .env editing
• Automatic ngrok detection and setup
• Step-by-step guidance with helpful links

Option B: Manual setup

1. cd runtime && npm install
2. Copy ../references/env.example to runtime/.env and fill in your values.
3. npm run build && npm start
4. Point your Twilio voice webhook to https://\x3Cyour-domain>/twilio/inbound
5. Call your Twilio number — your voice assistant answers!

Option C: Validation-only (existing setup)

1. Copy references/env.example to your own .env and replace placeholders.
2. Export required variables (TWILIO_ACCOUNT_SID, TWILIO_AUTH_TOKEN, TWILIO_CALLER_ID, OPENAI_API_KEY, OPENAI_PROJECT_ID, OPENAI_WEBHOOK_SECRET, PUBLIC_BASE_URL).
3. Run quick setup: scripts/setup_quickstart.sh
4. If preflight passes, run one inbound and one outbound smoke test.
5. Only then move to production usage.

Credential scope (recommended hardening)

Use least-privilege credentials for every provider:

• Twilio: use a dedicated subaccount for Amber and rotate auth tokens regularly.
• OpenAI: use a dedicated project API key for this runtime only; avoid reusing keys from unrelated apps.
• OpenClaw Gateway token: only set OPENCLAW_GATEWAY_TOKEN if you need brain-in-the-loop lookups; keep token scope minimal.
• Secrets in logs: never print full credentials in scripts, setup output, or call transcripts.
• Setup wizard validation scope: credential checks call only official Twilio/OpenAI API endpoints over HTTPS for auth verification; no arbitrary exfiltration endpoints are used.

These controls reduce blast radius if a host or config file is exposed.

Safe defaults

• Require explicit approval before outbound calls. Note on confirmation enforcement: For MCP-initiated outbound calls (make_call), confirmation is enforced at the MCP server layer in code (the tool returns a preview and requires confirmed=true on a second call before dialing) — this is not LLM-only instruction. The LLM instruction layer provides an additional reminder, but the code gate is the primary enforcement mechanism.
• If payment/deposit is requested, stop and escalate to the human operator.
• Keep greeting short and clear.
• Use timeout + graceful fallback when ask_openclaw is slow/unavailable.

Workflow

1. Confirm scope for V1

   • Include only stable behavior: call flow, bridge behavior, fallback behavior, and setup steps.
   • Exclude machine-specific secrets and private paths.

2. Document architecture + limits

   • Read references/architecture.md.
   • Keep claims realistic (latency varies; memory lookups are best-effort).

3. Run release checklist

   • Read references/release-checklist.md.
   • Validate config placeholders, safety guardrails, and failure handling.

4. Smoke-check runtime assumptions

   • Run scripts/validate_voice_env.sh on the target host.
   • Fix missing env/config before publishing.

5. Publish

   • Publish to ClawHub (example):
     clawhub publish \x3Cskill-folder> --slug amber-voice-assistant --name "Amber Voice Assistant" --version 1.0.0 --tags latest --changelog "Initial public release"
   • Optional: run your local skill validator/packager before publishing.

6. Ship updates

   • Publish new semver versions (1.0.1, 1.1.0, 2.0.0) with changelogs.
   • Keep latest on the recommended version.

Troubleshooting (common)

• "Missing env vars" → re-check .env values and re-run scripts/validate_voice_env.sh.
• "Call connects but assistant is silent" → verify TTS model setting and provider auth.
• "ask_openclaw timeout" → verify gateway URL/token and increase timeout conservatively.
• "Webhook unreachable" → verify tunnel/domain and Twilio webhook target.

Guardrails for public release

• Never publish secrets, tokens, phone numbers, webhook URLs with credentials, or personal data.
• Include explicit safety rules for outbound calls, payments, and escalation.
• Mark V1 as beta if conversational quality/latency tuning is ongoing.

Install safety notes

• Amber does not execute arbitrary install-time scripts from this repository.
• Runtime install uses standard Node dependency installation in runtime/.
• CRM uses better-sqlite3 (native module), which compiles locally on your machine.
• Review runtime/package.json dependencies before deployment in regulated environments.

Resources

• Runtime bridge: runtime/ (full source + README)
• Architecture and behavior notes: references/architecture.md
• Release gate: references/release-checklist.md
• Env template: references/env.example
• Quick setup runner: scripts/setup_quickstart.sh
• Env/config validator: scripts/validate_voice_env.sh