How to Install and Use Technical Analyst in OpenClaw

Open your terminal and run the clawhub install command to add the technical-analyst skill to your OpenClaw instance. ClawHub downloads the skill package from the registry, validates it, and registers it with your local OpenClaw configuration. Installation takes under a minute. After installation completes, you will see a confirmation message listing the required configuration keys — at minimum, a market data API key for fetching price history. The skill will not fetch live data until this key is configured. However, the skill will still function for analysis calculations if you provide raw OHLCV data directly in the prompt, which is useful for testing before your API key is set up. Run `clawhub info technical-analyst` after installation to see the full list of supported market data providers, indicator options, and configuration settings available in your installed version.

1clawhub install technical-analyst

The Technical Analyst skill requires a market data API to fetch price history for the tickers you analyze. The most accessible free option is Alpha Vantage, which provides both stock and cryptocurrency OHLCV data with a free tier that allows up to 25 API requests per day (or 500 per day with a free account registration). To get an Alpha Vantage key: go to alphavantage.co, click 'Get your free API key', enter your email, and the key is displayed immediately on the next page — no credit card required. The key is a 16-character alphanumeric string. For cryptocurrency-focused analysis, some users prefer CoinGecko's API (limited free tier) or a direct exchange API like Binance. Check `clawhub info technical-analyst` to see which providers your installed version supports and which environment variable name each one uses. For professional use with higher request limits, paid tiers from Alpha Vantage or Polygon.io provide better rate limits and more data history. The free tier is sufficient for personal analysis with a handful of tickers per day.

1# Set your market data API key
2# For Alpha Vantage (most common)
3clawhub config set ALPHA_VANTAGE_API_KEY your-16-char-key-here
4
5# For Polygon.io (if preferred)
6clawhub config set POLYGON_API_KEY your-polygon-key-here
7
8# Verify the key is stored
9clawhub config get ALPHA_VANTAGE_API_KEY
10
11# Reload config
12clawhub reload

Open OpenClaw chat and request a technical analysis using natural language. The skill recognizes requests mentioning ticker symbols, technical indicators, and timeframe references. You do not need to use a specific command format — describe the analysis you want as you would to a human analyst. The skill processes your request in stages: fetching the required price history from the market data provider, calculating the requested indicators, and generating an AI-written interpretation of the current signal state. This typically takes 5-15 seconds depending on the number of indicators requested and the data provider's response time. The output includes indicator values (e.g., 'RSI: 67.4 — approaching overbought'), trend context (whether the indicator is improving or deteriorating from recent levels), and an overall signal assessment (bullish, bearish, neutral, or mixed). For comprehensive analyses, the skill also notes any confluence between indicators — when multiple signals align, the combined signal is generally considered stronger. For your first test, start with a well-known stock like AAPL or MSFT and request a simple RSI and moving average analysis on the daily timeframe. This tests that the data connection is working before requesting more complex multi-indicator analyses.

The technical-analyst skill supports a YAML configuration file that sets your preferred default indicators and timeframes, so you do not need to specify them in every analysis request. If you always use the same set of indicators for your analysis style, setting these defaults makes your routine analysis prompts shorter and more consistent. Common indicator sets include: momentum-focused (RSI, MACD, Stochastic), trend-following (moving averages, ADX), and volatility-focused (Bollinger Bands, ATR). You can set a named preset in your config and invoke it with a shorthand in your prompts. RapidDev offers configuration reviews for traders and developers building systematic analysis pipelines in OpenClaw — particularly useful for teams combining Technical Analyst with the Crypto Price, Hyperliquid, and Polymarket skills for comprehensive market monitoring dashboards.

1# Configure skill defaults in ~/.openclaw/skills/technical-analyst.yaml
2technical-analyst:
3  default_timeframe: daily         # 1min | 5min | 15min | 1hour | 4hour | daily | weekly
4  default_indicators:
5    - rsi                          # Relative Strength Index (period: 14)
6    - macd                         # MACD (12, 26, 9)
7    - sma_20                       # 20-period Simple Moving Average
8    - sma_50                       # 50-period Simple Moving Average
9    - bollinger_bands              # Bollinger Bands (20, 2)
10  data_provider: alpha_vantage     # alpha_vantage | polygon | binance
11  output_format: structured        # brief | structured | detailed
12  include_price_context: true      # include current price with analysis

One of the most powerful uses of the Technical Analyst skill is scanning a list of tickers simultaneously and filtering for specific technical conditions. Rather than analyzing each ticker individually, you can ask OpenClaw to analyze a whole watchlist and surface only those meeting specific criteria — saving significant time when monitoring a broad market. For watchlist scans, provide the list of tickers and specify the condition you are looking for. The skill analyzes each ticker, checks for the condition, and returns either a filtered list (only tickers meeting the criteria) or a full comparison table depending on your preference. Note that each ticker in a multi-ticker scan uses one API request from your market data provider's quota. If your free tier has daily limits, be mindful of how many tickers you scan in a session — a 20-ticker scan uses 20 API calls, which can exhaust a 25-call daily free tier in one session.