Install Unclaw

Unclaw runs on macOS, Windows, and Linux. The experience is the same everywhere: the character renders in real time on your own machine.

What you need

Platform	Requirements
macOS	A Mac with Apple Silicon (M-series). Newer chips (M2 Pro and up) are smoothest; 16 GB unified memory recommended.
Windows	A modern dedicated GPU (NVIDIA recommended: it also accelerates the local AI models); 16 GB RAM recommended.
Linux	A Vulkan-capable dedicated GPU; 16 GB RAM recommended.

On every platform:

• Disk space for the runtime. The app itself is small, but the character engine, voices, and AI models it downloads on first run need real room: have at least 15 GB free (the installer checks).
• An internet connection for setup. After setup, how much Unclaw needs the network depends entirely on which AI and voice engines you choose. A fully local configuration exists.

Install

1. Download the installer for your platform from unclaw.io: DMG for macOS, installer for Windows.
2. macOS: drag Unclaw into Applications. Windows: run the installer.
3. Launch Unclaw.

The first launch

Unclaw ships as a small app that fetches its heavy pieces on first run, so you always get the current runtime instead of a stale bundle. The setup assistant walks through its stages:

1. Checks: hardware, free disk, prerequisites.
2. AI runtime: the local Python environment that powers speech recognition, voices, and face animation.
3. Character engine: the real-time renderer that brings your companion to life. This is the largest download.
4. Models & assets: the speech, face, and voice models.

Progress is shown per stage, and every stage is independently resumable: if your connection drops or you quit mid-download, relaunching skips what’s done and resumes the in-flight download where it stopped.

Tip

The downloads happen once. Updates after that are incremental: the app fetches only the pieces that changed.

Permissions Unclaw will ask for

• Microphone: so you can talk to your companion. You can decline and use text only, and grant it later:
  • macOS: System Settings → Privacy & Security → Microphone
  • Windows: Settings → Privacy & security → Microphone

When setup completes, the app moves straight into the first-run experience.

Also worth adding: the Chrome extension

Once the app is running, the Unclaw Chrome extension puts the same companion in a browser side panel, where she can see the page you are reading and act in your browser when you ask. It talks to the app on your own machine, so there is nothing extra to set up.

See Chrome extension for what it can do.