Production agentic AI
engineering.
From OpenClaw to autonomous systems. A practitioner-first curriculum with working code every Thursday. For engineers who build agents that survive production.
The full stack
Four products. One curriculum.
Start free. Upgrade when you're ready to build in production. Each product makes the next one more valuable.
Free Newsletter
Every Tuesday: concept primers, architecture deep-dives, the failure modes behind production patterns. Free forever and written to be forwarded.
Paid Subscription
Every Thursday: full deep dive + GitHub vault asset. Working code you clone and run. Discord. Full archive. $50 off the Issue Vault.
Issue Vault
All published walkthroughs as clean PDFs with drill cards on Google Drive. One payment. Lifetime access including all future issues.
Async Production Program
6-part structured course. One part per week via email. Written feedback in 72h. Private Discord cohort. No live sessions. 20 seats.
Tier 2 — Paid Subscription
Every Thursday. One deep dive.
Full vault asset included.
Not a tutorial summary. A complete end-to-end implementation — the exact code that would pass a production code review — with the GitHub vault asset you can clone and run in ten minutes.
- Weekly deep dive (every Thursday) — 1,500–2,500 words. Architecture-first. Every non-obvious decision explained. Version-stamped.
- GitHub vault asset every Thursday — self-contained folder: working code, annotated config, README with Problem/Decision/Files/Prerequisites/Version tested. Clone and run without reading anything else.
- Discord community — #vault-help, #builds-showcase, #async-cohort. Paid subscribers only. Answered within 24h.
- Full archive access — every deep dive ever published, in order. The curriculum accumulates.
- $50 off the Issue Vault — $249 instead of $299 with active subscription.
- $200 off the Async Program — $799 instead of $999.
Paid Subscription
Cancel anytime. No lock-in.
- Full deep dive every Thursday
- GitHub vault asset (one per issue)
- Discord paid-subscriber community
- Full back-archive access
- $50 off the Issue Vault
- $200 off the Async Program
🇮🇳 India & Southeast Asia: ₹599/mo · ₹4,999/yr
Email openclaw@systemdrd.com with subject "INR sub" for the local checkout link.
Tier 3 — Issue Vault
All walkthroughs.
Pay once. Use forever.
The complete published walkthrough library — every Part 1 and Part 2 deep dive collected in one Google Drive folder. Clean formatted PDFs, not raw Substack exports. Drill cards. A Start Here index.
Issue 02 — Five-Subsystem Debugging
Annotated openclaw.json + gateway-test.sh
Issue 04 — Skill Design for Reliability
5 description versions + structured output template
Issue 06 — Hardened Deployment
3 configs + security-test.sh + nginx config
Issue 08 — Eval Harness
eval.sh + cost-attribution.sh + pre-upgrade.sh
Issue 10 — MCP Deep Dive
5 servers configured + 5 reasoning skills
Issue 12 — Memory Deep Dive
Three-tier stack: daily-summary.sh + recall + curation
Issue 14 — TaskFlow Patterns
watchdog + overnight-batch + hitl-gate YAMLs
Issue 16 — Agentic Design Patterns
ReAct + Plan-Execute + Reflexion + HITL in code
Also included: Production Readiness Checklist PDF · Start Here index · one drill card per deep dive · lifetime updates as Parts 3–5 publish.
Issue Vault
- 16 full-length PDF walkthroughs (Parts 1 + 2)
- 16 printable drill cards
- Production Readiness Checklist
- Start Here index document
- Lifetime updates — Parts 3–5 added automatically
- 7-day refund if it wasn't worth it
Paid subscribers: $249 (save $50) — use subscriber link
🇮🇳 India & Southeast Asia: ₹9,999 — use INR link
Tier 4 — Async Production Program
The structured path to
production agentic engineering.
A fully async, self-paced 6-part course. No live sessions. No Zoom calls. No timezone conflicts. Six parts unlock weekly via email into a private Google Drive workspace. Written feedback on every assignment within 72 hours.
Foundations Deep Work
Five-subsystem audit of your own deployment. Run gateway-test.sh. Document your subsystem map.
Context Engineering + Skill Design
Run test-activations.sh on your current skills. Rebuild one skill to v5 production standard.
Security + Evaluation
security-test.sh all passing. Eval harness with 3 assertion tests + 1 LLM-as-judge.
Memory, RAG + Durable Workflows
Three-tier memory deployed. One TaskFlow workflow for your most repeated task.
Production Operations
VPS or hardened local deployment. Prometheus + Grafana dashboard. Cost attribution report.
Capstone — Build and Ship
One production agent from scratch. Graded against the production-readiness checklist with detailed written feedback.
Async Production Program
- Private Google Drive course portal (6 parts)
- Written assignment feedback in 72h
- Peer review pairings
- Private Discord #async-cohort channel
- Issue Vault included ($299 value)
- Alumni Discord access post-cohort
- 50% off next cohort for alumni
Paid subscribers: $799 (save $200)
🇮🇳 India & Southeast Asia: ₹39,999 — use INR link
Payment plans available. Email openclaw@systemdrd.com
The curriculum
Five parts. Forty issues.
By Part 5: you understand production agentic engineering well enough to apply it to any framework.
Foundations
Architecture, context engineering, skill design, security, evaluation. Working + secured + evaluated agent by the end.
Core Patterns
MCP, three-tier memory, RAG, TaskFlow, multi-agent, agentic design patterns in running code.
Interfaces & Applications
Channel config, voice, morning briefing done correctly, inbox triage, complete ops agent running 24/7.
Production
VPS deployment, Prometheus + Grafana, cost engineering, incident response, Agent Reliability Engineer role.
Frontier
Self-improving agents, agent-to-agent communication, honest OpenClaw production readiness assessment, the five questions that transfer to any framework.
Free resources
Start here. No credit card.
OpenClaw Quickstart Kit
Annotated openclaw.json + gateway-test.sh + IDENTITY.md starter. Zero to working agent in 20 minutes.
Get on Substack →Security Checklist PDF
12-point checklist mapped to three threat surfaces. Print and check before every deployment.
Get on Substack →Free Archive
Every Tuesday concept post. Searchable by topic. No paywall on the archive index.
Browse archive →Honest comparison
How it compares
| Alternative | Cost | What it lacks |
|---|---|---|
| YouTube tutorials | Free | No curriculum. No feedback. No code you can run. No production depth. |
| Udemy AI agent courses | $15–200 | Generic LangChain content. No OpenClaw depth. No eval discipline. No production ops. |
| Official OpenClaw docs | Free | Reference only — no engineering discipline, no failure mode coverage, no security model. |
| Hiring a consultant | $200–400/hr | Expensive. Doesn't build your capability. Doesn't scale. |
| OpenClaw Academy | $15/mo | Working code every Thursday. Eval discipline. Production security model. Career signal in every paid issue. |
FAQ
Common questions
Is the Issue Vault the same as the paid subscription?
Partial overlap. The subscription delivers vault assets weekly as issues publish. The Issue Vault collects everything in one Google Drive folder — clean PDFs, drill cards, a Start Here index — with no waiting. Paid subscribers get $50 off ($249 instead of $299).
Does the Async Program have live sessions?
No. Fully async — no Zoom, no scheduled calls, no timezone conflicts. Six parts unlock weekly into a private Google Drive workspace. Written feedback on every assignment within 72 hours. Discord for peer interaction. Designed for engineers with full-time jobs.
How does GitHub vault access work?
After subscribing on Substack (paid tier), you receive an email asking for your GitHub username. Submit it via a one-question form. You're added to the openclaw-academy-labs GitHub org as a read-only Outside Collaborator within 5 minutes. Access continues while your subscription is active.
How does Google Drive product delivery work?
After purchasing via Stripe, the product's Google Drive folder is shared to your purchase email within 5 minutes. View-only — you can open and download files. This is isolated per product: the Issue Vault and Async Program are completely separate folders.
Can I cancel the subscription and keep the Issue Vault?
Yes. The Issue Vault is a one-time purchase, not a subscription. Cancelling your Substack subscription removes GitHub vault access but does not affect your Issue Vault Google Drive folder — that was paid for separately. You keep it.
What level is this for?
Part 1 starts from zero — if you can read a bash script, you can follow it. By Part 4 (Production) the content assumes comfortable familiarity with Linux systems and a production mindset. Part 5 assumes everything in Parts 1–4. The curriculum grows with you.
India and Southeast Asia pricing?
Issue Vault: ₹9,999. Async Program: ₹39,999 with payment plans available (3 installments). Paid subscription: ₹599/month or ₹4,999/year. Email openclaw@systemdrd.com with subject "INR pricing" for the local checkout link. Same content, different checkout.
What's your refund policy?
Issue Vault: 7-day refund if you've read 5+ walkthroughs and it wasn't worth it. No forms, no questions. Reply to your purchase confirmation email. Async Program: full refund within 48 hours of payment. After that, module access has been granted — but you can defer to the next cohort for any reason. Paid subscription: cancel anytime via Substack.
Will new issues be added to the Issue Vault?
Yes. Lifetime updates means exactly that. As Parts 3–5 publish, the corresponding PDFs and drill cards are added to your Google Drive folder automatically. No additional payment, no action required.
OpenClaw Academy is not affiliated with or endorsed by the OpenClaw Foundation or OpenAI.
Questions: openclaw@systemdrd.com