Amber — Phone-Capable Voice Agent

Amber — Give Your Agent Real Phone Capabilities

Overview

Amber gives any OpenClaw deployment real phone capabilities for agents. It ships with a production-ready Twilio + OpenAI Realtime bridge (runtime/) for confirmed phone workflows: inbound answering, call screening, prepared outbound workflows, confirmed scheduling over a real telephone number, local call logs/transcripts, optional local CRM/contact memory, contacts lookup, MCP tools, and a loopback-only dashboard.

Amber is a sensitive communications system. It can process call audio/transcripts through configured voice and AI providers, store local call logs, maintain a local CRM, read/write the operator calendar, expose local MCP tools, and optionally use an Apple Contacts export for name-to-number resolution. Operators should configure caller notice/consent, retention/deletion practices, and least-privilege provider credentials before production use.

Privacy defaults: local CRM lookup/logging is disabled unless AMBER_CRM_ENABLED=true, and post-call transcript enrichment is disabled unless AMBER_CRM_TRANSCRIPT_ENRICHMENT=true. Enable those only after setting caller notice/consent and retention/deletion practices.

✨ New in v5.4.0: Amber now ships as an MCP plugin with 9 tools — prepare confirmed calls by name, check call history, query CRM contacts, manage calendar, and control call screening. It works with Claude Desktop/Cowork and other MCP-capable clients or agent harnesses once configured. Includes Apple Contacts integration and a code-enforced call confirmation safeguard to prevent wrong-number dials.

✨ Also: Interactive setup wizard (npm run setup) validates credentials in real-time and generates a working .env file — no manual configuration needed. Once setup is complete, Amber is prompt-based: ask your OpenClaw agent to prepare confirmed calls, answer/screen callers, schedule confirmed appointments, or handle phone workflows in natural language.

See it in action

Setup Wizard Demo

▶️ Watch the interactive demo on asciinema.org (copyable text, adjustable speed)

The interactive wizard validates credentials, detects ngrok, and generates a complete .env file in minutes.

What's included

• Runtime bridge (runtime/) — a complete Node.js server that connects Twilio phone calls to OpenAI Realtime with OpenClaw brain-in-the-loop
• Amber Skills (amber-skills/) — modular mid-call capabilities (CRM, calendar, log & forward message) with a spec for building your own
• Built-in CRM — local SQLite contact database; Amber can greet callers by name and use operator-approved context naturally on calls, with operator review/correction responsibility
• Call log dashboard (dashboard/) — browse call history, transcripts, captured messages, estimated costs, and one-touch localhost test calls with regular/mini Realtime model selection
• Setup & validation scripts — preflight checks, env templates, quickstart runner
• Architecture docs & troubleshooting — call flow diagrams, common failure runbooks
• Safety guardrails — outbound calls require code-enforced confirmation; payment escalation, consent boundaries, and explicit confirmation for calendar writes are documented

🔌 Amber Skills — Extensible by Design

Amber ships with a growing library of Amber Skills — modular capabilities that plug directly into live voice conversations. Each skill exposes a structured function that Amber can call mid-call, letting you compose powerful voice workflows without touching the bridge code.

👤 CRM — Contact Memory (v5.3.0)

Amber can maintain operator-reviewed caller memory across calls, limited to relevant follow-up context under the operator's notice, consent, and retention policy.

• Opt-in runtime management — set AMBER_CRM_ENABLED=true to enable automatic known-caller lookup and interaction logging
• Personalized greeting — known callers can be greeted by name; optional notes are used only when relevant to the call objective
• Optional enrichment — set AMBER_CRM_TRANSCRIPT_ENRICHMENT=true to allow post-call extraction to propose caller details and notes for the local CRM
• Operator review expected — review, correct, or delete CRM records periodically so bad transcript extraction, misleading caller input, or overly sensitive details do not persist indefinitely
• Symmetric — works identically for inbound and outbound calls
• Local SQLite CRM — contact memory is stored at ~/.config/amber/crm.sqlite; CRM records are not cloud-hosted. Live call audio/transcripts still pass through Twilio/OpenAI as part of the phone bridge. Tell callers when calls are handled by an AI assistant and may be logged/used for follow-up, according to your local consent requirements.
• Native dependency — requires better-sqlite3 (native build). macOS: sudo xcodebuild -license accept before npm install. Linux: build-essential + python3.

📅 Calendar

Query the operator's calendar for availability or schedule a new event — all during a live call.

• Availability lookups — free/busy slots for today, tomorrow, this week, or any specific date
• Event creation — create calendar events from a phone conversation only after the required details are collected and the caller explicitly confirms the slot
• Privacy by default — callers are only told whether the operator is free or busy; event titles, names, and locations are never disclosed
• Powered by ical-query — local-only, zero network latency

📬 Log & Forward Message

Let callers leave a message that is automatically saved and forwarded to the operator.

• Captures the caller's message, name, and optional callback number
• Always saves to the call log first (audit trail), then delivers via the operator's configured messaging channel
• Confirmation-gated — Amber confirms with the caller before sending
• Delivery destination is operator-configured — callers cannot redirect messages

Build Your Own Skills

Amber's skill system is designed to grow. Each skill is a self-contained directory with a SKILL.md (metadata + function schema) and a handler.js. You can:

• Customize the included skills to fit your own setup
• Build new skills for your use case — CRM lookups, inventory checks, custom notifications, anything callable mid-call
• Share skills with the OpenClaw community via ClawHub

See amber-skills/ for examples and the full specification to get started.

Contacts privacy: Apple Contacts sync is opt-in. By default it exports only names and phone numbers needed for call-by-name. Set AMBER_CONTACTS_EXTENDED=true only if you explicitly want extra local-only fields such as email, organization, relationships, addresses, and notes in runtime/contacts-cache.json.

Note: Each skill's handler.js is reviewed against its declared permissions. When building or installing third-party skills, review the handler source as you would any Node.js module.

Call log dashboard

cd dashboard && node scripts/serve.js   # → http://localhost:8787

• ⬇ Sync button (green) — immediately pulls new calls from runtime/logs/ and refreshes the dashboard. Use this right after a call ends rather than waiting for the background watcher.
• ↻ Refresh button (blue) — reloads existing data from disk without re-processing logs.
• One-touch test calls — when opened through node scripts/serve.js, the dashboard can call a test number through the local Amber bridge and choose gpt-realtime or gpt-realtime-mini per call.
• Cost visibility — estimates telephony and Realtime token cost from call duration and saved usage metadata; rates are editable in the dashboard.
• Background watcher (node scripts/watch.js) auto-syncs every 30 seconds when running.

Why Amber

• Ship a voice assistant in minutes — npm install, configure .env, npm start
• Full inbound screening: greeting, message-taking, appointment booking with calendar integration
• Outbound calls with structured call plans (reservations, inquiries, follow-ups), with confirmation gates and a runtime disable switch
• OpenClaw gateway lookup (least-privilege) — voice agent consults your OpenClaw gateway only for call-critical needs (availability checks, confirmed scheduling, required factual lookups), not for unrelated tasks
• VAD tuning + verbal fillers to keep conversations natural (no dead air during lookups)
• Fully configurable: assistant name, operator info, org name, calendar, screening style — all via env vars
• Operator safety guardrails for approvals/escalation/payment handling

Personalization requirements

Before deploying, users must personalize:

• assistant name/voice and greeting text,
• own Twilio number and account credentials,
• own OpenAI project + webhook secret,
• own OpenClaw gateway/session endpoint,
• own call safety policy (approval, escalation, payment handling).

Do not reuse example values from another operator.

5-minute quickstart

Option A: Interactive Setup Wizard (recommended) ✨

The easiest way to get started:

1. cd runtime
2. npm run setup
3. Follow the interactive prompts — the wizard will:
   • Validate your Twilio and OpenAI credentials in real-time
   • Auto-detect and configure ngrok if available
   • Ask whether to enable opt-in local CRM caller memory
   • Generate a working .env file
   • Optionally install dependencies and build the project
4. Configure your Twilio webhook (wizard shows you the exact URL)
5. Start the server: npm start
6. Call your Twilio number — your voice assistant answers!

Benefits:

• Real-time credential validation (catch errors before you start)
• No manual .env editing
• Automatic ngrok detection and setup
• Step-by-step guidance with helpful links

Option B: Manual setup

1. From the Amber skill folder: cd runtime && npm ci
2. cd ../amber-skills/crm && npm ci if you plan to enable CRM caller memory.
3. cd ../.. and copy references/env.example to runtime/.env, then fill in your values.
4. Set AMBER_CRM_ENABLED=true only if you want local caller memory/known-caller greetings.
5. cd runtime && npm run build && npm start
6. Point your Twilio voice webhook to https:///twilio/inbound
7. Call your Twilio number — your voice assistant answers!

Option C: Validation-only (existing setup)

1. Copy references/env.example to your own .env and replace placeholders.
2. Export required variables (TWILIO_ACCOUNT_SID, TWILIO_AUTH_TOKEN, TWILIO_CALLER_ID, OPENAI_API_KEY, OPENAI_PROJECT_ID, OPENAI_WEBHOOK_SECRET, PUBLIC_BASE_URL).
3. Run quick setup: scripts/setup_quickstart.sh
4. If preflight passes, run one inbound and one outbound smoke test.
5. Only then move to production usage.

Credential scope (recommended hardening)

Use least-privilege credentials for every provider:

• Twilio: use a dedicated subaccount for Amber and rotate auth tokens regularly.
• OpenAI: use a dedicated project API key for this runtime only; avoid reusing keys from unrelated apps.
• OpenClaw Gateway token: only set OPENCLAW_GATEWAY_TOKEN if you need brain-in-the-loop lookups; keep token scope minimal.
• Dependency integrity: runtime dependencies are pinned by runtime/package-lock.json; review dependency changes before publishing updates.
• Secrets in logs: never print full credentials in scripts, setup output, or call transcripts.
• Setup wizard validation scope: credential checks call only official Twilio/OpenAI API endpoints over HTTPS for auth verification; no arbitrary exfiltration endpoints are used.

These controls reduce blast radius if a host or config file is exposed.

Safe defaults

• Outbound calling is enabled by default for the full phone-agent experience. Set AMBER_ENABLE_OUTBOUND_CALLS=false to disable the outbound call endpoint.
• Require explicit approval before outbound calls. Note on confirmation enforcement: For MCP-initiated outbound calls (make_call), confirmation is enforced at the MCP server layer in code (the tool returns a preview and requires confirmed=true on a second call before dialing) — this is not LLM-only instruction. The LLM instruction layer provides an additional reminder, but the code gate is the primary enforcement mechanism.
• If payment/deposit is requested, stop and escalate to the human operator.
• Keep greeting short and clear.
• Use timeout + graceful fallback when ask_openclaw is slow/unavailable.

Workflow

1. Confirm scope for V1

   • Include only stable behavior: call flow, bridge behavior, fallback behavior, and setup steps.
   • Exclude machine-specific secrets and private paths.

2. Document architecture + limits

   • Read references/architecture.md.
   • Keep claims realistic (latency varies; memory lookups are best-effort).

3. Run release checklist

   • Read references/release-checklist.md.
   • Validate config placeholders, safety guardrails, and failure handling.

4. Smoke-check runtime assumptions

   • Run scripts/validate_voice_env.sh on the target host.
   • Fix missing env/config before publishing.

5. Publish

   • Publish to ClawHub (example):
     clawhub publish --slug amber-voice-assistant --name "Amber Voice Assistant" --version 1.0.0 --tags latest --changelog "Initial public release"
   • Optional: run your local skill validator/packager before publishing.

6. Ship updates

   • Publish new semver versions (1.0.1, 1.1.0, 2.0.0) with changelogs.
   • Keep latest on the recommended version.

Troubleshooting (common)

• "Missing env vars" → re-check .env values and re-run scripts/validate_voice_env.sh.
• "Call connects but assistant is silent" → verify TTS model setting and provider auth.
• "ask_openclaw timeout" → verify gateway URL/token and increase timeout conservatively.
• "CRM lookup fails after a Node upgrade" → run cd amber-skills/crm && npm rebuild better-sqlite3, then restart the Amber runtime.
• "Webhook unreachable" → verify tunnel/domain and Twilio webhook target.

Guardrails for public release

• Never publish secrets, tokens, phone numbers, webhook URLs with credentials, or personal data.
• Include explicit safety rules for outbound calls, payments, and escalation.
• Mark V1 as beta if conversational quality/latency tuning is ongoing.

Install safety notes

• Amber does not execute arbitrary install-time scripts from this repository.
• Runtime install uses standard Node dependency installation in runtime/, with dependencies pinned in runtime/package-lock.json.
• CRM uses better-sqlite3 (native module), which compiles locally on your machine.
• Review runtime/package.json dependencies before deployment in regulated environments.

Resources

• Runtime bridge: runtime/ (full source + README)
• Architecture and behavior notes: references/architecture.md
• Release gate: references/release-checklist.md
• Env template: references/env.example
• Quick setup runner: scripts/setup_quickstart.sh
• Env/config validator: scripts/validate_voice_env.sh