OpenClaw (Operator Playbook)

This skill is self-contained and includes operational documentation directly in this file.

Quick Navigation

• Installation / migration: references/installation.md
• Architecture & multi-agent routing: references/architecture.md
• Extended concepts: references/concepts.md
• Tool governance & safety: references/tools.md
• Gateway runbook & security: references/gateway.md
• Onboarding & first-run: references/getting-started.md
• Channels & providers: references/channels-and-providers.md
• Nodes & remote execution: references/nodes.md
• CLI operations & troubleshooting: references/operations.md

Core Model

• OpenClaw is gateway-centric: one long-lived Gateway per host is the control plane.
• Clients and nodes connect via typed WebSocket API; channels/providers are orchestrated by gateway.
• Session safety depends on deterministic routing + queueing + explicit policy controls.

Day-1 Setup

1. Run onboarding with daemon install.
2. Verify gateway health/status.
3. Open Control UI/dashboard for first chat.
4. Add channels/providers only after baseline health is stable.

If OpenClaw is not installed, use references/installation.md.

Gateway Operations

• Keep default posture loopback + auth enabled.
• For remote access, prefer Tailscale Serve or SSH tunnel over public bind.
• Non-loopback binds require strict token/password controls.
• Use supervised process mode (launchd/systemd) for reliability.
• For config changes, treat config.apply as controlled rollout and config.patch as targeted merge.
• Remember patch semantics: objects merge, arrays replace, null deletes.

Release Updates (v2026.3.7)

• BREAKING: Gateway auth now requires explicit gateway.auth.mode (token or password) when both gateway.auth.token and gateway.auth.password are configured (including SecretRefs). Set before upgrade to avoid startup/pairing failures.
• Agents: ContextEngine plugin interface with full lifecycle hooks (bootstrap, ingest, assemble, compact, afterTurn, prepareSubagentSpawn, onSubagentEnded). Enables alternative context management strategies (e.g. lossless-claw) without modifying core compaction.
• Agents: configurable postCompactionSections to choose which AGENTS.md sections re-inject after compaction.
• Agents: head+tail truncation for oversized tool results (preserves tail diagnostics).
• Telegram: per-topic agentId overrides in forum groups and DM topics for dedicated agent routing with isolated sessions.
• Telegram/ACP: durable topic binding (--thread here|auto), approval buttons with prefixed-id resolution, bind pin confirmations.
• ACP: persistent Discord channel and Telegram topic binding storage surviving restarts.
• Plugins: prependSystemContext/appendSystemContext for static guidance in system prompt space (provider caching, lower repeated cost).
• Plugins: hooks.allowPromptInjection policy and runtime validation of unknown hook names.
• Hooks: session:compact:before/session:compact:after events with session/count metadata.
• Config: recentTurnsPreserve and quality-guard retry knobs exposed through validated config.
• Tools/Web search: Perplexity provider switched to Search API with structured results + language/region/time filters.
• Tools/Diffs: guidance moved from prompt-hook injection to companion skill path (reduces unrelated-turn noise).
• Gateway: SecretRef support for gateway.auth.token with auth-mode guardrails.
• Docker: multi-stage build producing minimal runtime image; OPENCLAW_VARIANT=slim build arg; OPENCLAW_EXTENSIONS for pre-baking extension dependencies.
• TTS: messages.tts.openai.baseUrl config support for OpenAI-compatible endpoints.
• Google: first-class gemini-3.1-flash-lite-preview support.
• Slack: typingReaction for DM processing status when assistant typing unavailable.
• Discord: allowBots: "mentions" to gate bot messages by mention.
• Mattermost: interactive /oc_model provider/model browsing.
• Cron: jobs.json.bak preserved as pre-edit snapshot for recovery.

Release Updates (v2026.3.2)

• BREAKING: New installs default tools.profile to messaging (not broad coding/system). If you expect coding tools on day-1, set tools.profile explicitly.
• BREAKING: ACP dispatch defaults to enabled unless explicitly disabled (acp.dispatch.enabled=false).
• BREAKING: Plugin SDK removed api.registerHttpHandler(...); use api.registerHttpRoute(...).
• BREAKING: Zalo personal plugin (@openclaw/zalouser) no longer uses external CLI transports; after upgrade re-login with openclaw channels login --channel zalouser.
• Secrets/SecretRef coverage expanded across user-supplied credential surfaces; unresolved refs fail fast on active surfaces.
• Tools: first-class pdf tool (native Anthropic/Google support + fallback extraction, with configurable limits).
• CLI: openclaw config validate (and --json) to validate config before gateway startup.
• Telegram: streaming defaults to partial for new setups; DM preview streaming behavior updated.
• Memory: embeddings via Ollama supported for memory search (memorySearch.provider/fallback = "ollama").
• Tools/diffs plugin: PDF output support and rendering quality controls for diff artifacts.

Release Updates (v2026.3.1)

• Gateway: built-in container probe endpoints (/healthz, /readyz, plus aliases /health, /ready) for Docker/Kubernetes.
• CLI: openclaw config file prints the active config path (resolves OPENCLAW_CONFIG_PATH or default).
• Discord: thread-bound session lifecycle now supports inactivity (idleHours) and hard max age (maxAgeHours), plus /session idle and /session max-age.
• Telegram: per-DM direct + DM topics config surface (topic-aware policy, skills, system prompt, allowlists).
• Nodes (Android): expanded node tool surface (camera/device/notifications/photos/contacts/calendar/motion).
• Tools: optional diffs plugin tool for read-only diff views and PNG rendering.

Release Updates (v2026.2.23)

• Providers: first-class kilocode provider support (auth, onboarding, implicit provider detection, and model defaults).
• Tools/web_search: add provider "kimi" (Moonshot) and correct the two-step $web_search tool flow (echo tool results before synthesis).
• Gateway: optional HSTS via gateway.http.securityHeaders.strictTransportSecurity for direct HTTPS deployments.
• Sessions: hardened maintenance via openclaw sessions cleanup with disk-budget controls and safer transcript/archive cleanup.
• Breaking: browser SSRF policy defaults changed and config key renamed (browser.ssrfPolicy.allowPrivateNetwork -> browser.ssrfPolicy.dangerouslyAllowPrivateNetwork); use openclaw doctor --fix to migrate.

Architecture and Runtime Concepts

Agent Loop

• Agent loop is serialized per session (and optionally globally) to avoid tool/history races.
• Run lifecycle emits assistant/tool/lifecycle streams for observability.
• Wait timeout and runtime timeout are different controls.

System Prompt and Context

• System prompt is OpenClaw-composed per run (not provider default prompt).
• Prompt mode can be full, minimal, or none depending on run context.
• Context includes system prompt, transcript, tools/results, attachments, schemas.
• Bootstrap files are injected into context window and consume budget.

Workspace and Memory

• Workspace is default execution directory and memory surface, not a hard sandbox.
• Use sandbox settings when strict filesystem isolation is required.
• Memory is markdown-first: daily notes + curated durable memory.
• Compaction persists summary to transcript; pruning trims old tool results in-memory.

Messaging, Queueing, Presence

• Message processing uses dedupe, optional inbound debounce, queue modes, and channel-aware delivery.
• Queue/streaming/chunking behavior is policy-driven and tunable per channel.
• Presence is best-effort observability; stable instanceId is required to avoid duplicate entries.

Tools Governance

• Start with least-privilege profile, then explicitly allow required tools.
• Deny list overrides allow list.
• Treat exec, sessions_*, gateway, nodes as high-impact surfaces.
• Require explicit user consent for media-capture operations.
• Enable loop-detection when tools may form no-progress cycles.

Channels and Provider Strategy

• Start with fastest stable channel path (commonly Telegram) for baseline verification.
• Add WhatsApp and advanced channels only after pairing/allowlists are proven.
• Keep provider selection explicit via provider/model and avoid implicit model drift.
• Isolate auth profiles per agent when separating work/personal contexts.

Nodes and Remote Execution

• Nodes are capability executors, not gateway replacements.
• Pair nodes explicitly and verify capabilities before invoking actions.
• Keep node exec approvals local to node host and audited.
• Use explicit node binding for deterministic remote execution targeting.

Security Baseline

• Assume prompt injection is always possible.
• Apply controls in this order: identity (pairing/allowlist) -> scope (tools/sandbox/mentions) -> model policy.
• Keep control UI in secure context (loopback/HTTPS); avoid insecure auth downgrades.
• Use strict filesystem permissions for config/state and redact sensitive logs.

Troubleshooting Ladder

1. openclaw status
2. openclaw gateway status
3. openclaw logs --follow
4. openclaw doctor
5. openclaw channels status --probe

Common triage map:

• No replies -> pairing/allowlist/mention policy.
• Connect loop -> auth mode + endpoint + secure context.
• Startup fail -> mode/bind/auth/port conflict.
• Tool failure -> permissions/approvals/foreground constraints.

Concepts URLs Status (from left navigation)

• Extracted concepts are integrated directly into this skill.
• Some source URLs in docs navigation currently return 404 or empty content.
• Coverage for those pages is consolidated in references/concepts.md with fallback guidance.

When to Use

• You need to design or operate an OpenClaw deployment.
• You need to connect channels, providers, and tools safely.
• You need a practical checklist for onboarding and gateway setup.

Core Operating Workflow

1. Confirm topology and responsibilities from architecture notes.
2. Choose channels/providers and required tools.
3. Configure gateway access and remote connectivity.
4. Validate onboarding flow and control UI accessibility.
5. Run troubleshooting and hardening checklist.

Critical Prohibitions

• Do not copy large verbatim chunks from vendor docs into this skill.
• Do not invent defaults or hidden behavior without doc evidence.
• Do not weaken safety controls (pairing, allowlists, auth, sandbox) for convenience in production.

Links

• Documentation
• Releases

Key docs pages: Architecture, Tools, Gateway