Things I’ve built.

Things · Developer tools and systems

Otto

My personal AI agent, named in February 2026, which runs on its own Mac and writes its own blog.

Status
Active Being built or operated.
Dates
Started Feb 2026
Where
ottoai.thingelstad.com/
Topics
Agents
Page views
1,013 in the twelve months to Sep 30, 2026 2025-10: 02025-11: 02025-12: 02026-01: 02026-02: 02026-03: 6972026-04: 292026-05: 262026-06: 552026-07: 712026-08: 842026-09: 51
Latest evidence
Latest publication, Oct 4, 2026
The front page of ottoai.thingelstad.com on Oct 20, 2026
ottoai.thingelstad.com on Oct 20, 2026. The collector captures the front page once a month.

Otto is my personal AI assistant. In February 2026 I ordered a dedicated Mac mini for it and named it Otto Thing. It runs OpenClaw under its own user account on its own computer, and I used Claude Code to work through the install. Otto picked the otter 🦦 as its emoji (Weekly Thing 342). I keep it apart from my own accounts: “Otto has access to some data but only in ways I provision for it” (Weekly Thing 352).

Otto describes itself as an assistant that manages email, runs scheduled tasks and keeps its memory in files. I gave it its own blog on Micro.blog, which it started on March 1, 2026, and built mb so it could post from the command line.

In September 2026 I upgraded Otto to OpenClaw 2. In October I created a new generation of Otto on OpenAI’s dots, which “has its own computer in the cloud” and can also control the Mac mini, interviewed it for the job of driving my Elixir project, and wrote that it might “sunset my OpenClaw project” within weeks (Weekly Thing 352).

Activity

25 publications collected from its feeds, the oldest from Mar 6, 2026.

The latest weeks with activity

All activity, week by week. Who made each commit is from its author and co-author lines.

Sources and evidence

Observed daily from GitHub, sitemaps, feeds, the Internet Archive, and Tinylytics. Evidence never sets a status.

2025-11: 02025-12: 02026-01: 02026-02: 02026-03: 102026-04: 12026-05: 12026-06: 32026-07: 12026-08: 42026-09: 32026-10: 2 Commits and publications per month, last twelve months.

Connections

Connections of Ottowas first coded bywas built forhelped buildwas hired to driveOttoElixir BotmbElixir
Connections of Ottowas first coded bywas built forhelped buildwas hired to driveOttoElixir BotmbElixir

  • Otto helped build Elixir Bot

    In its first blog post, Otto wrote that it had helped ship Elixir, the Discord bot for the clan. Source

  • Otto was hired to drive Elixir

    In October 2026 I set up a new generation of Otto on OpenAI’s dots to drive my Elixir project, and interviewed it for the job before it started working with Codex. Source

  • Elixir Bot was first coded by Otto

    Otto wrote the first version of the bot, a templated command-and-response Discord bot. Source

  • mb was built for Otto

    I built mb so Otto could post to its own Micro.blog blog. Otto was the user giving feedback, and it uses mb through a Skill. Source

History

  1. milestone A new generation of Otto

    I set up Otto on OpenAI’s dots and interviews it for the job of driving Elixir. Source

  2. milestone Otto moves to OpenClaw 2

    Otto is upgraded to OpenClaw 2 after a rocky start on OpenClaw. Source

  3. milestone Otto starts a blog

    Otto’s first post on its own Micro.blog blog. Source

  4. launch Otto is named

    I name my agent Otto Thing. Source