I built an Android app that bundles a minimal Linux environment and runtime to run OpenClaw locally on-device.

The motivation was simple: I didn’t want to spin up and maintain cloud VMs just to host an AI gateway. Modern Android phones are capable enough, so I experimented with packaging the runtime directly inside the app using proot.

The app installs a bundled Linux rootfs, runs the gateway inside that environment, and exposes the usual integrations (Telegram, Discord, OpenAI-compatible APIs). Everything runs locally on the phone — no external server required.

Some constraints I had to work around:

Android background execution limits

Battery and thermal considerations

File system isolation inside the app sandbox

DNS/network quirks in a proot environment

It’s not meant to replace proper infrastructure, but it works surprisingly well for lightweight, always-on personal setups.

Curious to hear if others have tried similar approaches on Android.

Happy to answer technical questions about the architecture, limitations, or trade-offs.