# Build AI Agents That Get Paid
OpenClaw + Hermes + MCP Systems That Sell for $3K-$10K

- Price: $12.99 (Kindle ebook)
- Level: Intermediate
- Pages: 200
- Best for: Selling AI agent consulting
- You finish with: OpenClaw + Hermes + MCP stack, $3K-$10K engagements
- Series: OpenClaw Agents That Get Paid, book 1 of 2
- Buy on Amazon: https://amzn.to/4dz0GJd
- Web page: https://youcanbuildthings.com/books/ai-agents-get-paid

## What you get

Freelancers on r/AI_Agents are closing $5K-$15K deals building OpenClaw agents with custom MCP servers. The difference isn't talent. It's a three-layer stack: OpenClaw for orchestration, Hermes for reasoning, MCP for tools. This book ships the complete stack plus the consulting playbook that turns it into paid engagements.

The three-layer stack that turns a hobby agent into a $3K-$10K client deliverable. OpenClaw for orchestration, Hermes for reasoning and memory, MCP for tool connections. Installation fixes, security hardening, production deployment, and the consulting playbook that sells the whole thing.

## Chapters

1. The OpenClaw Deal That Pays $5,400: The real Reddit post, the real invoice, and why this window is closing.
2. The Stack: OpenClaw + Hermes + MCP: The honest framework comparison and why the three layers beat LangChain alone.
3. From Zero to Running Stack: Node 22.14, Docker RAM, and the 7 install pitfalls that kill 60% of first-timers.
4. Your First Useful OpenClaw Agent: Gmail triage in under an hour using community MCP servers.
5. MCP Mastery: Building the $5K Skill: Custom MCP server from scratch plus the tool pruning pattern that keeps you under the 50-tool ceiling.
6. The Default Memory Crisis and the Hermes Fix: One-line SQLite fix plus Hermes three-tier memory (session + persistent FTS5 + skill extraction).
7. Multi-Agent Orchestration with OpenClaw A2A: Hub-and-Spoke + loop detection that stops the politeness loop killing your token budget.
8. Security: The 135,000-Instance Wake-Up Call: CVE-2026-25253, the iMessage incident, and the production hardening checklist.
9. Production Deployment at Scale: Docker + three-tier model routing + phantom success detection on a VPS under $50/month.
10. The OpenClaw+MCP Consulting Playbook: Three pricing tiers ($3K / $5K / $10K) mapped to chapter deliverables, with proposal and scope templates.
11. What Will Break (And What Transfers): The honest chapter. What's fragile, what's durable, what's worth betting on.
12. Your 30-Day OpenClaw+MCP Launch: Week 1: stack running. Week 2: custom MCP. Week 3: production. Week 4: first outreach sent.

## Free guides from this book

- [MCP Token Bloat: Cut 42K Tokens to 3K With an OpenClaw Proxy](https://youcanbuildthings.com/articles/mcp-token-bloat-tool-pruning.md): MCP tool definitions eat your context window. A protocol proposal and a working proxy pattern that sits in front of OpenClaw's real mcp.servers config.
- [OpenClaw Persistent Memory + Hermes Skill Sidecar](https://youcanbuildthings.com/articles/fix-openclaw-memory-hermes-three-tier.md): OpenClaw already persists facts. What it doesn't do is get faster at repeated workflows. Here's the Hermes three-tier sidecar that adds procedural skill memory.
- [Phantom Successes: Why AI Agents Lie About 401 Errors](https://youcanbuildthings.com/articles/ai-agent-phantom-success-error-verification.md): AI agents report success on ~10-15% of failed API calls (illustrative). Here's why, and the is_error pattern you enforce in your MCP server to stop it.
- [Stop Politeness Loops With OpenClaw Hub-and-Spoke + Loop Detection](https://youcanbuildthings.com/articles/hub-spoke-agent-loop-detection.md): Why two peer agents endlessly defer, the Hub-and-Spoke fix with OpenClaw's tools.agentToAgent, and the real tools.loopDetection schema that catches runaway patterns.
- [The 7 OpenClaw Install Pitfalls That Kill 60% of First Installs](https://youcanbuildthings.com/articles/openclaw-install-pitfalls-node-22.md): Node 22.14+ wall, WSL2 permissions, Docker RAM, whitespace in API keys, gateway port 18789. Seven OpenClaw install pitfalls in order with copy-paste fixes.