OpenClaw has had six names in under three months. A Git history analysis using Simon Willison's first_line_history.py tool traces the project from its first commit on November 24, 2025 through five rebrands: Warelay, CLAWDIS, CLAWDBOT, Clawdbot, Moltbot, and finally OpenClaw on January 30, 2026.
The rename sequence is not random noise. It maps a pivot from a WhatsApp relay CLI built on Twilio to an AI agent gateway to a personal AI assistant. The subtitle changes are as revealing as the name changes: 'WhatsApp Relay CLI (Twilio)' became 'WhatsApp Gateway for AI Agents' on December 3, then 'Personal AI Assistant' by December 19, all under different names.
Read the original for the commit-level timestamps, which make the chronology precise to the minute, and to examine first_line_history.py itself, a small tool that extracts the first line of a file across an entire Git history. The talk is at PyCon US 2026, presentation 175.
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