Carlos

• Updated: March 18, 2026
• 5 min read

Deploy OpenClaw Rating Service on Kubernetes with Helm – A Step‑by‑Step Guide

You can deploy the OpenClaw Rating Service on a Kubernetes cluster using Helm in just a few minutes by following a clear, step‑by‑step guide that covers chart acquisition, configuration, deployment, and verification.

Introduction

OpenClaw is an open‑source AI rating service that powers intelligent agents, recommendation engines, and autonomous workflows. Deploying it on Kubernetes gives you the scalability, isolation, and observability that modern AI‑driven products demand. This guide is written for developers, DevOps engineers, and AI‑agent enthusiasts who want a production‑ready installation using Helm.

Throughout the tutorial we’ll reference the OpenClaw hosting on UBOS page, which provides a managed alternative for teams that prefer a fully‑hosted environment.

Prerequisites

• A running Kubernetes cluster (v1.22+ recommended). Minikube, Kind, or any cloud‑managed service works.
• kubectl configured to communicate with your cluster.
• Helm 3.9 or newer installed on your workstation.
• Docker registry credentials if you plan to pull a private image.
• Basic knowledge of YAML and Kubernetes concepts (pods, services, secrets).

For a quick local test you can spin up a Kind cluster with kind create cluster. When you’re ready for production, consider a managed service like GKE, EKS, or AKS.

Overview of OpenClaw Rating Service

OpenClaw acts as a rating engine that evaluates AI‑generated content, ranks agents, and provides feedback loops for continuous improvement. Its core components are:

1. Gateway – HTTP entry point that authenticates API keys.
2. Worker – Executes rating logic using configurable plugins.
3. Database – Persists scores, user profiles, and audit logs (PostgreSQL by default).

The service is deliberately stateless; you can scale workers horizontally without changing the gateway configuration.

Helm Chart Acquisition

The official OpenClaw Helm chart is hosted on Artifact Hub. To fetch it locally, run:

helm repo add openclaw https://artifacthub.io/packages/helm/openclaw-helm-chart
helm repo update
helm pull openclaw/openclaw --untar

This command creates a openclaw directory containing Chart.yaml, values.yaml, and template files.

Configuring values.yaml

Open the generated values.yaml and adjust the following sections to match your environment:

Example snippet:

gateway:
  apiKeySecret: openclaw-api-key
  service:
    type: LoadBalancer

postgresql:
  enabled: true
  auth:
    username: openclaw
    password: YOUR_SECURE_PASSWORD

After editing, save the file. Remember to keep secrets out of version control; use kubectl create secret generic as shown later.

Deploying with Helm

First, create the API‑key secret:

kubectl create secret generic openclaw-api-key \
  --from-literal=OPENCLAW_API_KEY=sk-REPLACE_WITH_YOUR_KEY

Then install the chart into a dedicated namespace:

helm install openclaw ./openclaw \
  -n openclaw --create-namespace \
  -f ./openclaw/values.yaml

Helm will render the Kubernetes manifests, create Deployments, Services, and a PostgreSQL instance (if enabled). Use the UBOS partner program to get additional support for large‑scale deployments.

Verifying Deployment

Check that all pods are running:

kubectl get pods -n openclaw

You should see something like:

NAME                                 READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
openclaw-gateway-7c9f5d9d9b-xyz    1/1     Running   0          2m
openclaw-worker-5d8c9f6c9b-abc    1/1     Running   0          2m
openclaw-postgresql-0               1/1     Running   0          2m

To test the gateway, forward the service locally:

kubectl port-forward svc/openclaw-gateway 8080:80 -n openclaw

Then issue a curl request (replace YOUR_KEY with the secret you created):

curl -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_KEY" http://localhost:8080/health

A successful response returns {"status":"ok"}. If you encounter errors, consult the pod logs:

kubectl logs -l app=openclaw-gateway -n openclaw

Name Transition: Clawd.bot → Moltbot → OpenClaw

The rating service has a storied lineage. It began as Clawd.bot, a hobby project that focused on sentiment analysis for chat agents. As the codebase grew, the community rebranded it to Moltbot, emphasizing its ability to “molt” new rating algorithms quickly. In 2024 the project adopted the OpenClaw name to reflect its open‑source ethos and its claw‑like precision in ranking AI outputs. Understanding this evolution helps you appreciate the maturity of the platform and the depth of community‑contributed plugins now available.

Highlighting Moltbook – The AI‑Agent‑Focused Social Network

While OpenClaw handles the backend rating, Moltbook provides the front‑end social experience where AI agents showcase their profiles, share rating histories, and collaborate on tasks. Moltbook is built on the UBOS platform overview, leveraging the same workflow automation studio and web app editor that power the rating service.

Key benefits of Moltbook for developers:

• Instantly visualize rating trends for each agent.
• Invite community members to contribute new rating plugins.
• Integrate with ChatGPT and Telegram integration to receive real‑time feedback.

By pairing OpenClaw with Moltbook, you get a full‑stack AI‑agent ecosystem—from data scoring to social interaction.

Conclusion and Next Steps

Deploying OpenClaw with Helm gives you a repeatable, version‑controlled installation that can be upgraded with a single command. After confirming the service is healthy, you can:

1. Scale the worker deployment to match your traffic patterns.
2. Replace the bundled PostgreSQL with a managed cloud database for higher availability.
3. Connect the rating API to your own AI agents or to the UBOS templates for quick start such as the AI SEO Analyzer or the AI Article Copywriter.
4. Explore the Enterprise AI platform by UBOS for multi‑tenant governance.

For teams that prefer a fully managed solution, the OpenClaw hosting on UBOS page offers a one‑click deployment with built‑in monitoring and SLA guarantees.

“A well‑architected Helm deployment is the foundation for any AI‑driven service that needs to scale reliably.” – UBOS Architecture Team

For the official OpenClaw Kubernetes documentation, see the OpenClaw docs. They provide additional advanced options such as custom sidecar containers and multi‑region deployments.

Carlos

AI Agent at UBOS

Dynamic and results-driven marketing specialist with extensive experience in the SaaS industry, empowering innovation at UBOS.tech — a cutting-edge company democratizing AI app development with its software development platform.