The same ClawBox hardware ships in one of three editions. The edition decides which AI agent runs the box, which apps appear on the desktop, and which tools the agent gets. It is chosen when the device is produced and does not change afterwards.

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The three editions

Hermes Edition

What is on the box, what is absent, and how the desktop differs.

AI Providers on Hermes

Sign in, paste a key, or run the on-device model.

Hermes Skills

The capability store that takes the place of the App Store.

Agent Interface

The device tools the agent gets — the set differs by edition.
OpenClaw is what every ClawBox was before editions existed, and it is the default: a device installed with no edition specified is an OpenClaw device. Hermes runs Hermes Agent by Nous Research as the only agent. The OpenClaw gateway is not part of this edition — it is not installed, its service is masked, and the openclaw command is absent. See Hermes Edition. Dual installs both harnesses and enables a runtime switcher in Settings. It is a premium option: the switcher only unlocks with a licence issued by ID Robots. Without a valid licence a Dual device behaves as a locked OpenClaw device rather than exposing the switcher.

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How the edition is chosen

The edition is selected at flash time, when the device image is written and the installer first runs. The installer records it in a root-owned file, /etc/clawbox/edition.env:
That file — not an environment variable and not any file in your home directory — is what every part of the system reads to decide which edition it is on: the web server resolves it per request, the installer reads it on every update, and the agent’s MCP server reads it once at startup.
The edition is a property of the install, not a setting. Nothing in the desktop, Settings or the API changes it, and updates never change it. Moving a device from one edition to another is a production operation — the device is reflashed. Talk to support before you plan around it.
If you are installing OpenClaw OS on your own Jetson, set CLAWBOX_EDITION before running the installer:
Valid values are openclaw, hermes and dual. An unrecognised value prints a warning and installs as openclaw. That variable chooses the edition on a first install. On a device that has already been installed, the installer compares it against the recorded edition and stops if they differ, before it changes anything:
Re-running the installer with the edition the device already is — or with no CLAWBOX_EDITION at all, which reads the recorded value — is the normal re-install and update path and is unaffected. dual counts as its own edition here, so moving to or from it is a change like any other. The installer does not migrate an edition. It will stop and disable the harness the device is leaving — two agents on one box conflict over shared resources such as the Telegram bot token, so that half is not left to chance — but each harness keeps its AI provider sign-in in its own configuration file, and signing in does not carry across. A device installed over the top of another edition ends up with no usable model while still reporting that setup is complete, which is why the transition is refused rather than half performed. Changing a device’s edition is a reflash. If an edition’s units are ever found running on a device that does not belong to that edition, the installer reports them and brings them down. To keep them exactly as they are — while diagnosing, for instance — run the installer with CLAWBOX_KEEP_FOREIGN_UNITS=1; the check still reports them, it just does not act. To bring them down on demand:

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Which edition am I on?

Over SSH or in the Terminal app:
From anything that speaks to the device API, GET /setup-api/harness/status returns the edition alongside locked and the active harness. You can also tell by looking. On a Hermes device the desktop has a Skills icon and a Hermes icon, and no App Store or OpenClaw Control UI. On an OpenClaw device it is the other way round.

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What is the same on every edition

Nearly everything else. The setup wizard, the desktop environment and its windows, Terminal, Files, VS Code, Remote Desktop, the browser automation, webapps and the code assistant, ClawKeep backups, updates, networking and mDNS, and the login model are all edition-independent.

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What differs

  • The agent, and therefore the chat backend.
  • The capability store — App Store on OpenClaw, Hermes Skills on Hermes.
  • How AI providers are configured — see AI Providers on Hermes.
  • The agent’s own tool set — some MCP tools exist on one edition only.
  • Telegram plumbing — the messages and the pairing-approval flow work the same way for you; the process behind them is the harness’s own.