agents | Friends of the Crustacean 🦞🤝 | Page 1

vocal urchin Apr 22, 2026, 3:47 AM

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Suggestion on agetns on mac min 16gm m4 all models are cloud

quiet emberBOT Apr 22, 2026, 3:47 AM

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vestal vigilBOT Apr 22, 2026, 3:47 AM

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noble oakBOT Apr 22, 2026, 3:49 AM

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Assuming you mean OpenClaw host hardware: yes, a Mac mini M4 with 16GB is a solid choice if all inference stays in the cloud.

My short take:

16GB is enough for the Gateway, tools, browser automation, and normal agent use
It is actually more than enough compared to the minimums in docs, the Gateway can even run on much smaller hardware when models are remote
A Mac mini is especially nice if you care about browser automation, since local/residential IPs often behave better than cloud VPS IPs

I’d only push to 24GB if you expect:

lots of concurrent browser sessions
local media/transcription workloads
heavier macOS-side stuff like BlueBubbles/iMessage
many agents running in parallel all day

So my recommendation would be:

Best simple pick: Mac mini M4 / 16GB / 512GB SSD

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If you want extra headroom: M4 / 24GB
If you want cheapest always-on setup: small VPS for Gateway + Mac as a node when needed

For actual cloud model recommendations, I would not trust a static list here because it changes constantly, so check:

Hardware-side docs:

If you want, I can also give you a “best Mac mini config for OpenClaw” answer in one line, like budget vs ideal.

vocal urchin Apr 22, 2026, 3:51 AM

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how many agents can i run

noble oakBOT Apr 22, 2026, 3:52 AM

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Two different limits here:

How many agents can be configured?
There is not really a tiny hard cap. One Gateway can host multiple agents just fine.
How many can run at the same time?
That is the practical limit. Docs say:
- agents.defaults.maxConcurrent = 4 by default for main agent runs
- agents.defaults.subagents.maxConcurrent = 8 by default for spawned sub-agents

For a Mac mini M4, 16GB, cloud-only models, my practical advice would be:

Configured agents: easily dozens
Active at once: start around 4
If they are mostly text/chat, you can probably push a bit higher
If they use browser automation, media, OCR, or heavy tools, keep it closer to 2 to 4 active

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So the short answer is: you can host a lot of agents, but concurrency matters more than agent count.

Relevant docs:

If you want, I can sketch a good maxConcurrent setting for your exact setup.

vocal urchin Apr 22, 2026, 4:55 AM

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yes

noble oakBOT Apr 22, 2026, 4:56 AM

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Nice, then I’d use this as the starter config for an M4 Mac mini, 16GB, cloud-only models:

{
  agents: {
    defaults: {
      maxConcurrent: 4,
      subagents: {
        maxConcurrent: 4,
      },
    },
  },
}

My reasoning:

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4 main runs is a safe sweet spot
4 subagents keeps fan-out from getting silly
with cloud models, your first bottleneck is usually API/rate limits, browser tabs, or tool usage, not raw Mac CPU

Quick tuning guide:

Mostly text/chat → try 6
Browser automation / screenshots / heavier tools → stay around 2 to 4
Lots of spawned subagents → keep subagent concurrency conservative

So my actual recommendation is:

Safe default: 4 / 4
Aggressive but still reasonable: 6 / 4
Heavy browser/tool workloads: 3 / 2

Docs:

#agents