📌 TL;DR

• Claude Sonnet 4.6 → Feels like Opus at Sonnet pricing. 1M context window, near human-level computer use, and free users got a bunch of Pro features unlocked.

• AI Agent Wars → OpenClaw vs Manus vs Kimi Claw. Three completely different approaches to personal AI agents. Here's what each one actually does and which one is worth your time.

• The OpenClaw Playbook → I put together 10 guides covering everything from secure setup to building an AI org chart.

• Builder's notes → I built a full Shopify store in 2 hours with Claude Code, automated product photography with AI, and shipped my first real web app.

Claude Sonnet 4.6 out

Anthropic dropped Sonnet 4.6 on Monday. In short, it feels more like using Opus, at Sonnet pricing.

You won't notice much difference when chatting with any newly released models. They're all REALLY GOOD now. You barely get hallucinations if you give it good context.

Where you will notice progress:

• Context window went from 200k to 1M tokens. You can feed it entire projects, long docs, full codebases without hitting the wall 🤯

• Coding capability is noticeably better if you're building apps or websites

• Computer use is at "near human-level" for spreadsheets and websites. If you've been using Claude to navigate apps on your screen, this is a big jump

Free users also got access to file creation, connectors, skills, and compaction, features that were previously locked behind Pro.

The AI agent wars: OpenClaw vs Manus vs Kimi Claw

The personal AI agent space exploded this week. Three products, three completely different approaches to the same problem: an AI that actually does things for you.

• OpenClaw is the one we covered a few weeks ago (formerly Clawdbot). It's open-source, and you set it up on a dedicated machine. A Mac Mini, a VPS, whatever you want. It gets its own computer with its own filesystem, terminal, and full access to do things. You configure it for your business, connect it to your tools, and interact with it through WhatsApp, Telegram, Slack, etc. The tradeoff is setup. You need 30-60 minutes and some Docker knowledge. $5-50/month in API credits.

• Manus got acquired by Meta and just launched on Telegram. Zero setup. Scan a QR code and go. It can run code, browse the web, and do data analysis. But most people don't realise: it's running on a sandboxed cloud VM that Meta controls, not a machine you own. You can't configure it the same way. Youre also looking at $39-199/month with an opaque credit system, and some users report burning 900+ credits on a single task. All your data lives on Meta's servers.

• Kimi Claw is the interesting middle ground. Moonshot AI took OpenClaw and put it in a browser. No Docker, no terminal, no VPS. One-click deployment. It can execute Python, browse the web autonomously, and run scheduled tasks (e.g. "every morning at 8:30, find me the top 5 news stories"). But like Manus, it runs in Moonshot's cloud. Not a machine you control.

My two cents:

With OpenClaw, you own the machine, and you can configure it super granularly to be a great employee. The other two are someone else's cloud. Manus and Kimi Claw are great if you want easy set-up and a personal assistant. If you want a fully configured agent that acts as an employee in your business, with agents managing other agents like an org chart, OpenClaw is the way to go. If you want to get set up properly, I put together a full playbook. More on that below.

Oh, and OpenAI hired OpenClaw's creator Peter Steinberger on February 15 to "drive the next generation of personal agents." Everyone's betting big on this space.

Also this week...

• ChatGPT ads are live. If you're on the free or Go ($8/month) tier, you'll start seeing sponsored content matched to your conversation topics.

• Grok 4.20 went into public beta. The headline feature is 4-agent parallel collaboration, where specialized AI agents work on your problem simultaneously and merge their outputs into one response. You have to manually select "Grok 4.2" from the model menu to try it. Full public release expected in March.

• Google added AI music generation to Gemini. Lyria 3 lets you generate 30-second music tracks from text prompts, photos, or videos, complete with vocals and lyrics. If you've been looking for a way to make custom intros, podcast bumpers, or background tracks without licensing headaches, this is worth a look.

• Claude Cowork launched on Windows. If you missed this one, Cowork is basically Claude Code wrapped in a clean UI for non-coding work. It runs in an isolated VM on your computer, can read and write your local files directly, and handles multi-step tasks. Previously Mac only.

The OpenClaw Playbook

Everyone's losing their minds over OpenClaw right now (formerly Clawdbot). It's sick, but most people feel lost when it comes to setup, or end up getting hacked because they've set it up wrong, and waking up to API bills they didn't expect.

I've been setting these up on Mac Minis and VPS's for myself and a few other companies over the last few weeks, so I put together everything I've learned into one resource.

10 guides:

1. How OpenClaw actually works

2. Which setup is right for you (Mac Mini or VPS)

3. Secure setup guide for Mac Mini

4. Secure setup guide for VPS

5. Locking it down

6. 3 free memory upgrades

7. Making it work while you're asleep

8. Cost optimisation guide (so you don't wake up with a $3k API bill)

9. Teaching your agent processes

10. How to build an AI org chart on OpenClaw (bosses, workers, and cross-team comms)

I'm not in the business of pushing shitty digital products every week for cash grabs. You guys know that. The value here is genuinely insane for the price. I've spent weeks figuring this stuff out so you don't have to.

You get instant access for $5. Offer is a newsletter exclusive, and only live for 72 hours then it's gone.

💡 Builder’s notes

I built out an entire Shopify store for a new brand i'm starting using Claude Code. It genuinely took me 2 hours, and it looks like a custom theme that brands pay thousands for.

Learn this and build stores for yourself, OR start offering custom stores to brands as an agency and undercut everyone on price.

I wrote up a full guide and video you can get for free:

👉 How to Build a Custom Shopify Store with Claude Code

I also used Claude Code to do the entire product imagery for a mate's ecommerce furniture store and the results are crazyyy.

I set up Google's Gemini NanoBanana MCP in Claude Code, then went back and forth giving Claude reference images for the photography and lighting style until it had a prompt style that nailed the look.

I told Claude I have a folder of product reference images and need each one turned into 8 shots. Editorial, studio, close-ups, human-in-the-scene lifestyle, etc. Then I asked it to create a “/tiba-product-shoot” skill.

Now all I need to do is invoke the skill, enter the product category and name, and we're off to the races. Full product photo shoot, no photographer, no studio.

I BUILT MY FIRST APP.

Like, a real, fully functioning web app. skillscanner.xyz. Built entirely with Claude Code.

With the rise of open skill libraries like OpenClaw, prompt injection through skills, tools, and plugins is the #1 critical vulnerability in AI agent systems according to OWASP's 2025 Top 10 for LLM Applications.

So I built a scanner. Upload any skill file and it runs a 5-part security analysis: static, behavioral, LLM, metadata, and VirusTotal scanning.

The backend that scans your skills is solid. The sign-in flow and dashboard are a little janky and need polishing. But the core product works.

Three managed services, zero self-hosted infrastructure: Vercel for the Next.js frontend, Supabase for auth and database, Railway for the Python scanner backend.

I had the idea, it was fun to learn and build, but it's not a project i'm going to continue with.

If you want to steal the idea, go ahead. I'm open to selling the project and everything i've built (including the domain) for cheap, if you're interested reply back to this email and we can chat.

🥣 Brain food

• The Courage to Be Disliked → I've been reading this one and it's absolutely phenomenal. If you're looking for a good book to pick up, this is it.

• 6 Perspective Shifts You Need to Get Rich Online → An absolute gem. I revisit this video at least once a quarter. If you haven't seen it, fix that.

• AI Marketing Masterclass: From Beginner to Expert in 60 Minutes → Great walkthrough of using Claude Code for marketing. Worth the watch if you want to see what's possible.