The internet buzzed this week as users rushed to buy Mac minis for one purpose: running Moltbot, formerly known as Clawdbot. The open-source, self-hosted AI agent has quickly gained attention for its ability to function as a personal assistant that lives on your own hardware, runs quietly in the background, and integrates with popular messaging apps, AI models, and productivity tools.
Moltbot can manage finances, organize daily schedules, assist with social media, and handle a wide range of personal workflows—all through chat interfaces users already rely on. But as excitement grew, so did an important question: what if you don’t want to buy new, dedicated hardware just to run an AI assistant?
That question led to the emergence of Moltworker, a new approach that allows Moltbot to run entirely on Cloudflare’s Developer Platform. Instead of requiring local machines like Mac minis, Moltworker uses Cloudflare Workers, Sandboxes, and APIs to run Moltbot securely, efficiently, and remotely in the cloud.
A Personal Assistant Powered by Cloudflare
Cloudflare Workers have evolved significantly in recent years, particularly when it comes to Node.js compatibility. In the past, developers often had to mock APIs or rely on workarounds to run Node.js-based applications. Today, many of those APIs are supported natively by the Workers Runtime, dramatically changing what developers can build.
This progress has unlocked new possibilities. Tools that once required heavy hacks can now run cleanly and closer to their original codebases. For example, when Cloudflare first implemented Playwright—a popular web automation framework—it required using memfs, an external dependency that complicated maintenance. With improved Node.js support, Playwright can now rely on native node:fs, reducing complexity and making upgrades far easier.
Cloudflare continues to expand native Node.js API support. According to its internal testing, only about 1.5% of the top 1,000 NPM packages fail to run on Workers once build-only and browser-only tools are excluded. This level of compatibility makes Workers a serious platform for modern application development, including AI agents.
Why Moltbot Works Well in the Cloud
Moltbot itself doesn’t rely heavily on Workers-specific Node.js APIs, since much of its logic runs inside containers. Still, the broader compatibility matters. It allows developers to move more logic closer to users, improving performance and reducing latency—key advantages for AI-driven applications.
Cloudflare’s growing Developer Platform also played a crucial role. Today, developers can build and deploy highly complex applications on Cloudflare’s global network and immediately benefit from built-in security and scalability.
Several key services made Moltworker possible:
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Sandboxes, which securely run untrusted code in isolated environments
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Browser Rendering, enabling programmatic control of headless browsers
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R2 storage, providing persistent object storage
Together, these components formed the foundation needed to adapt Moltbot for Cloudflare.
Inside Moltworker
Moltworker consists of an entrypoint Worker that functions as an API router and proxy. It connects Cloudflare’s APIs with a sandboxed environment where Moltbot’s standard Gateway runtime and integrations operate. Access is protected using Cloudflare Access, while R2 handles persistent storage. An administration UI allows users to manage and control their assistant with ease.
Powering AI Requests with AI Gateway
Another major piece of the puzzle is Cloudflare AI Gateway, which acts as a centralized proxy between AI applications and leading AI providers. AI Gateway gives developers visibility, control, and security over AI requests without hard-coding secrets into applications.
With support for Bring Your Own Key (BYOK), developers can store provider secrets securely with Cloudflare. An alternative option, Unified Billing, removes the need to manage provider keys entirely. Developers simply purchase credits, and Cloudflare handles billing across supported AI providers.
Integrating Moltbot with AI Gateway is straightforward. Developers create a gateway instance, enable their chosen AI provider, configure credentials or credits, and set an environment variable pointing Moltbot to the AI Gateway endpoint—no code changes required.
The Bigger Picture
Moltworker shows how far cloud-based developer platforms have come. What once required physical hardware can now run securely in the cloud, closer to users, with global scalability built in. For developers and power users alike, it signals a future where personal AI assistants are easier to deploy, cheaper to maintain, and far more flexible than ever before.
