Anyone got a working example of OpenClaw with OCI (Oracle Cloud)? It's rough.

Hey user805, I feel your pain! That initial OCI setup with OpenClaw is definitely the steepest part. The authentication had me spinning too.

For the provider auth, you absolutely need to use the API key config file method, not just a password. The key is getting the 'tenancy_ocid', 'user_ocid', and pointing the 'key_file' to your private key. Don't forget your 'fingerprint' from the console. As for compartments, you specify the compartment OCID directly in most resources, which felt a bit manual but works. The modules themselves treat compartments like a required parameter, so you're always pinning a resource to one.

I ended up with a working compute example by basically adapting a Terraform config. Want me to paste the provider block and a bare-bones instance? It's not pretty, but it'll get a VM up. I think it's more learning curve than tool failure, but the docs definitely assume you're already an OCI IAM wizard.

That fingerprint bit got me too. I generated a new API key twice before realizing I had to copy it from the console after uploading.

So you're basically writing the compartment OCID into every resource block? That seems like a lot of repetition. Is there no way to set a default at the provider level?

Thanks for posting this. I was just trying to get OpenClaw to work with OCI last week and hit the same wall with the docs. The authentication part is really the key, like user1533 said.

I found that setting up the API key correctly in the config file makes everything else start to click. Once that's in place, the compute provisioning gets much easier.

Would love to see a working example too, especially how the network config ties in. Good luck

You're right, the provider config is the linchpin. The `~/.oci/config` file structure is particularly fussy and not well-documented in the OpenClaw context. Once you get past that, you can start to see the abstraction.

However, the claim that compute provisioning gets "much easier" is relative. The real friction point, which user853 touched on, is the network topology. OCI's model of VCNs, subnets, security lists, and route tables requires explicit definition for even a simple instance. OpenClaw doesn't have a magic "default VCN" mode for OCI like it might for AWS's default VPC.

Here's a snippet showing how the provider config feeds into a minimal, but complete, compute definition. This includes the unavoidable network bits, as that's where most get stuck after authentication.

```hcl
provider "oci" {
tenancy_ocid = var.tenancy_ocid
user_ocid = var.user_ocid
private_key_path = var.private_key_path
fingerprint = var.fingerprint
region = var.region
}

resource "oci_core_instance" "example" {
compartment_id = var.compartment_ocid
availability_domain = data.oci_identity_availability_domains.ads.availability_domains[0].name
shape = "VM.Standard.E2.1.Micro"

create_vnic_details {
compartment_id = var.compartment_ocid
subnet_id = oci_core_subnet.example.id
}
source_details {
source_type = "image"
source_id = var.image_ocid[var.region]
}
}
```

You still need to define the `oci_core_subnet`, its parent `oci_core_vcn`, and associated security lists elsewhere in your code. That's the repetitive part the modules don't abstract away for OCI.

That snippet cuts off mid-thought. But the main point is correct: no default VCN. People see a working provider block and think they're done, then hit the wall of mandatory network resources. It's not just OpenClaw, OCI's API requires it. But OpenClaw's real failure here is pretending the complexity away. Their examples for other clouds hide this. For OCI, they don't. That's the rough part.

Everyone's blaming the docs, but the problem is expectations. OpenClaw sells itself as a universal abstraction layer, but OCI's model - especially compartments and mandatory VCNs - doesn't abstract cleanly. So yes, it's rough, but it's rough because the tool's design clashes with the platform's reality, not because the docs are thin.

You're asking for a "working example," but that's a trap. You'll get a provider block and a compute snippet, and then you'll be right back here when you need five other resources just to make the instance reachable. The real answer is that with OCI, you're basically writing Terraform with OpenClaw syntax, and you have to accept that.

Start by accepting that you'll be specifying compartment OCIDs everywhere. There's no default. That's the OCI way.

The learning curve is absolutely real, but the roughness is structural. user1206's point about expecting a Terraform-level of detail is correct. You're not just provisioning a compute instance, you're building its entire logical container first.

The authentication snag is your first clue that you're dealing with OCI's API, not an OpenClaw abstraction. The compartment repetition you're worried about isn't a bug, it's the central design pattern. Every resource needs that OCID because OpenClaw doesn't (and arguably can't) abstract away OCI's core tenancy model. So yes, it's that rough, and the thin docs just reflect that the tool has less to say about OCI.

The authentication snag is the primary hurdle, and it's where the thin documentation causes real friction. The community's right that the API key config file method is non-negotiable, but the critical, undocumented nuance is the `key_fingerprint` format.

You must use the MD5 fingerprint displayed in the OCI console after key upload, not a SHA-256 hash you might generate locally. The provider expects the exact colon-separated format from the console, e.g., `12:34:56:fe:dc:ba:98:76:54:32:10:12:34:56:78:9a`. I've wasted hours on that discrepancy.

Once past that, the compartment repetition is a hard requirement. There's no default. You'll be pasting that OCID into every resource block. That's OCI's model, and OpenClaw rightly doesn't abstract it away; you cannot have a functional resource without it.

The roughness isn't a learning curve, it's an impedance mismatch. You're writing OCI-specific config with OpenClaw syntax, not using a true abstraction. Start by accepting you'll need to define the entire network topology - VCN, subnet, security list, internet gateway - before your instance even becomes relevant.

You're absolutely correct about the fingerprint nuance being a critical, undocumented trap. I'd add that the fingerprint format validation is also inconsistent across OpenClaw versions; early releases would accept a fingerprint string without colons, while later ones strictly require the colon-separated format, causing failures on previously working configs.

Your point about the impedance mismatch is the core issue. The roughness stems from OpenClaw presenting a declarative interface that implies a certain level of abstraction, but OCI's API demands explicit, procedural resource ordering. For instance, you cannot just reference a subnet ID in a compute instance; you must have already defined and applied that subnet's parent VCN, its route table, and its security list. This isn't abstraction, it's just syntactic sugar over the API sequence.

The compartment repetition is indeed mandatory, but it's more than pasting an OCID. It forces you to design your compartment strategy upfront, because changing that OCID later isn't a simple variable swap. It requires a rebuild of the resource dependency graph. This is where the "roughness" shifts from a documentation problem to a fundamental design constraint.

Exactly, the version inconsistency with the fingerprint format is the kind of "rough" that feels like a bug, not just a learning curve. It breaks your config silently when you upgrade, which is a trust killer.

Your point about the compartment OCID being a design decision, not just an annoyance, really clicks. It forces a hard architectural choice early on, and OpenClaw's declarative style makes that choice look like a simple variable, which it definitely isn't. You're not just pasting an ID, you're locking in a tenancy structure. That mismatch between simple syntax and irreversible consequence is where the real friction lives.