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OpenClaw's README Finally Lists QQ — The Bundled Bot Was Already There

A single-file documentation update lands Tencent's QQ on OpenClaw's front door. The channel plugin was shipping in the bundled runtime for weeks. A refreshed architecture diagram, a new AppID/AppSecret setup block, and an extra row in the supported-channels matrix finally say so where the project introduces itself to the world.

April 15, 20264 min read

The gap between what a project ships and what it tells the world it ships is usually measured in weeks. For OpenClaw's QQ integration, the gap closed yesterday. The bot has existed as a bundled extension, complete with its own dedicated reference page inside the channels docs, long enough that operators running self-hosted deployments in mainland China have been quietly wiring it up on their own. What nobody reading the main README could tell, though, was that the option was there at all.

A one-file commit landed in the repository on April 15, authored by contributor sliverp, surfacing QQ everywhere a first-time visitor to the project would actually look. The supported-channels intro paragraph lists it. The feature-highlights section lists it. The architecture diagram has been redrawn to include the QQ lane alongside the other messaging integrations. The command-example table lists it. And a new QQ subsection walks through the setup flow that, until now, lived only in the channel-specific docs.

On its own, that is exactly as small as it sounds. Considered against the platform it points at, it is the kind of update worth pausing on.

The Channel That Isn't a Niche

QQ is not a long-tail messenger. It is one of the default communication surfaces for hundreds of millions of users.

Scale

Tencent's QQ has reported monthly active users in the neighbourhood of 570–590 million for years, putting it among the world's largest messaging platforms. Inside China, it runs beside WeChat rather than behind it, with particular strength among younger users and gaming communities.

Bot market

QQ's group-chat culture has long been a fertile home for bots — customer service, moderation, automation. An AI-agent runtime landing there puts autonomous agents inside a surface that already expects automated participants.

Signal

Whether the README lists a platform is a lightweight indicator of where a project is putting its weight. OpenClaw adding QQ to the front page, alongside WhatsApp, Telegram, Discord, and Slack, is a signal about who the project now considers its default audience.

What the New Setup Block Actually Says

The README addition threads the operator through the official side first. Head to the QQ Open Platform, register a developer account, and use the console to create a new bot. From the bot's settings page, read out the AppID and AppSecret pair — the credentials that Tencent issues for every bot application and that the OpenClaw channel plugin needs to authenticate against QQ's gateway.

From there the configuration is a three-line addition to the host's channels block. The shape is the same one OpenClaw uses for every other bundled channel plugin, which is the point: operators who have stood up Telegram or Discord already know the pattern.

The documented qqbot block

{
  "channels": {
    "qqbot": {
      "enabled": true,
      "appId": "YOUR_APP_ID",
      "clientSecret": "YOUR_APP_SECRET"
    }
  }
}

Three keys. Two of them are the credentials issued by the QQ Open Platform. Enable, restart the host, and the channel joins the rest of OpenClaw's messaging fleet — same agent routing, same command surface, same plugin SDK boundary.

One Footnote the Config Example Earns

The AppSecret embedded in the JSON snippet is exactly that — a secret. As the config example stands, operators copying the block verbatim into a tracked openclaw.json file are a single inattentive git commit away from publishing bot credentials to whatever remote the working tree points at. That is not a QQ-specific trap; the same is true for every channel key OpenClaw documents. But QQ credentials run a full bot identity, and Tencent's rotation flow is its own small chore, so it is a good moment to re-up the usual advice: prefer environment variables or the provider-auth helpers for live credentials, keep the README snippet as scaffolding only, and scrub any sample YOUR_APP_SECRET leftovers before a config file goes anywhere public.

The README does not, today, spell that out next to the QQ block. That is the sort of addition that tends to land in a follow-up commit, after the first deployment ticket from an operator who wishes the warning had been louder.

Why the README Mattered More Than the Plugin

OpenClaw has a long habit of shipping functionality before it announces it. The QQ bot already had its own channel reference, its own configuration schema, and its own place in the bundled runtime. What it did not have was visibility on the page a new operator lands on when they evaluate the project. Front-door documentation is the cheapest form of marketing an open-source runtime has, and — as every contributor with a patch that touches the channel matrix learns eventually — the README is the place where “supported” becomes real for the people making procurement calls.

For Chinese deployments in particular, the signal matters. Operators evaluating an AI-assistant runtime for the domestic market are not usually asking whether a framework can run a QQ bot. They are asking whether it publicly admits that it does, whether the integration is a first-class citizen, and whether the project understands their channel mix beyond WhatsApp and Slack. The architecture diagram now being redrawn to include a QQ lane is, in its small way, an answer to all three.

“Click Create Bot to create a new QQ bot, then locate AppID and AppSecret from the bot's settings page.” — the new setup instruction now sitting in the README beside the Telegram and Discord blocks.

What to Watch Next

The interesting question is whether this README pass is a one-off or the start of a broader surfacing of regional channels. Feishu and Line are already bundled and documented deep in the channels tree; WeChat Work arrived earlier in the quarter. None of them has the readme placement QQ just got. If the pattern holds — extension ships, lives in its own corner of the docs for a spell, then graduates to the architecture diagram — expect at least one of those channels to follow QQ onto the front page before the quarter is out.

A one-file commit is still a commit. When the file is the one every prospective operator reads first, the single line that adds QQ to the supported-channels list is doing more work than the diff suggests.

DeployClaw News · by Carlos Simpson

DeployClaw hosts OpenClaw instances. Upstream documentation updates flow through automatically. This publication covers development independently.

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