OpenClaw Parallels Smoke

Use this skill for Parallels guest workflows and smoke interpretation. Do not load it for normal repo work.

Global rules

• Use the snapshot most closely matching the requested fresh baseline.
• Gateway verification in smoke runs should use openclaw gateway status --deep --require-rpc unless the stable version being checked does not support it yet.
• Stable 2026.3.12 pre-upgrade diagnostics may require a plain gateway status --deep fallback.
• Treat precheck=latest-ref-fail on that stable pre-upgrade lane as baseline, not automatically a regression.
• Pass --json for machine-readable summaries.
• Per-phase logs land under /tmp/openclaw-parallels-*.
• Do not run local and gateway agent turns in parallel on the same fresh workspace or session.
• If main is moving under active multi-agent work, prefer a detached worktree pinned to one commit for long Parallels suites. The smoke scripts now verify the packed tgz commit instead of live git rev-parse HEAD, but a pinned worktree still avoids noisy rebuild/version drift during reruns.
• For prlctl exec, pass the VM name before --current-user (prlctl exec "$VM" --current-user ...), not the other way around.
• If the workflow installs OpenClaw from a repo checkout instead of the site installer/npm release, finish by installing a real guest CLI shim and verifying it in a fresh guest shell. pnpm openclaw ... inside the repo is not enough for handoff parity.
• On macOS guests, prefer a user-global install plus a stable PATH-visible shim:
  • install with NPM_CONFIG_PREFIX="$HOME/.npm-global" npm install -g .
  • make sure ~/.local/bin/openclaw exists or ~/.npm-global/bin is on PATH
  • verify from a brand-new guest shell with which openclaw and openclaw --version

npm install then update

• Preferred entrypoint: pnpm test:parallels:npm-update
• Flow: fresh snapshot -> install npm package baseline -> smoke -> install current main tgz on the same guest -> smoke again.
• Same-guest update verification should set the default model explicitly to openai/gpt-5.4 before the agent turn and use a fresh explicit --session-id so old session model state does not leak into the check.
• The aggregate npm-update wrapper must resolve the Linux VM with the same Ubuntu fallback policy as parallels-linux-smoke.sh before both fresh and update lanes. Treat any Ubuntu guest with major version >= 24 as acceptable when the exact default VM is missing, preferring the closest version match. On Peter's current host today, missing Ubuntu 24.04.3 ARM64 should fall back to Ubuntu 25.10.
• On macOS same-guest update checks, restart the gateway after the npm upgrade before gateway status / agent; launchd can otherwise report a loaded service while the old process has exited and the fresh process is not RPC-ready yet.
• On Windows same-guest update checks, restart the gateway after the npm upgrade before gateway status / agent; in-place global npm updates can otherwise leave stale hashed dist/* module imports alive in the running service.
• For Windows same-guest update checks, prefer the done-file/log-drain PowerShell runner pattern over one long-lived prlctl exec ... powershell -EncodedCommand ... transport. The guest can finish successfully while the outer prlctl exec still hangs.
• The Windows same-guest update helper should write stage markers to its log before long steps like tgz download and npm install -g so the outer progress monitor does not sit on waiting for first log line during healthy but quiet installs.
• Linux same-guest update verification should also export HOME=/root, pass OPENAI_API_KEY via prlctl exec ... /usr/bin/env, and use openclaw agent --local; the fresh Linux baseline does not rely on persisted gateway credentials.
• The npm-update wrapper now prints per-lane progress from the nested log files. If a lane still looks stuck, inspect the nested logs in runDir first (macos-fresh.log, windows-fresh.log, linux-fresh.log, macos-update.log, windows-update.log, linux-update.log) instead of assuming the outer wrapper hung.
• If the wrapper fails a lane, read the auto-dumped tail first, then the full nested lane log under /tmp/openclaw-parallels-npm-update.*.

CLI invocation footgun

• The Parallels smoke shell scripts should tolerate a literal bare -- arg so pnpm test:parallels:* -- --json and similar forwarded invocations work without needing to call bash scripts/e2e/... directly.

macOS flow

• Preferred entrypoint: pnpm test:parallels:macos
• Default upgrade coverage on macOS should now include: fresh snapshot -> site installer pinned to the latest stable tag -> openclaw update --channel dev on the guest. Treat this as part of the default Tahoe regression plan, not an optional side quest.
• parallels-macos-smoke.sh --mode upgrade should run that release-to-dev lane by default. Keep the older host-tgz upgrade path only when the caller explicitly passes --target-package-spec.
• Because the default upgrade lane no longer needs a host tgz, skip npm pack + host HTTP server startup for --mode upgrade unless --target-package-spec is set. Keep the pack/server path for fresh and both.
• If that release-to-dev lane fails with reason=preflight-no-good-commit and repeated sh: pnpm: command not found tails from preflight build, treat it as an updater regression first. The fix belongs in the git/dev updater bootstrap path, not in Parallels retry logic.
• Until the public stable train includes that updater bootstrap fix, the macOS release-to-dev lane may seed a temporary guest-local pnpm shim immediately before openclaw update --channel dev. Keep that workaround scoped to the smoke harness and remove it once the latest stable no longer needs it.
• In Tahoe prlctl exec --current-user runs, prefer explicit node .../openclaw.mjs ... invocations for the release->dev handoff itself and for post-update verification. The shebanged global openclaw wrapper can fail with env: node: No such file or directory, and self-updating through the wrapper is a weaker lane than invoking the entrypoint under a fixed node.
• Default to the snapshot closest to macOS 26.3.1 latest.
• On Peter's Tahoe VM, fresh-latest-march-2026 can hang in prlctl snapshot-switch; if restore times out there, rerun with --snapshot-hint 'macOS 26.3.1 latest' before blaming auth or the harness.
• parallels-macos-smoke.sh now retries snapshot-switch once after force-stopping a stuck running/suspended guest. If Tahoe still times out after that recovery path, then treat it as a real Parallels/host issue and rerun manually.
• The macOS smoke should include a dashboard load phase after gateway health: resolve the tokenized URL with openclaw dashboard --no-open, verify the served HTML contains the Control UI title/root shell, then open Safari and require an established localhost TCP connection from Safari to the gateway port.
• If a packaged install regresses with 500 on /, /healthz, or __openclaw/control-ui-config.json after fresh.install-main or upgrade.install-main, suspect bundled plugin runtime deps resolving from the package root node_modules rather than dist/extensions/*/node_modules. Repro quickly with a real npm pack/global install lane before blaming dashboard auth or Safari.
• prlctl exec is fine for deterministic repo commands, but use the guest Terminal or prlctl enter when installer parity or shell-sensitive behavior matters.
• Multi-word openclaw agent --message ... checks should go through a guest shell wrapper (guest_current_user_sh / guest_current_user_cli or /bin/sh -lc ...), not raw prlctl exec ... node openclaw.mjs ..., or the message can be split into extra argv tokens and Commander reports too many arguments for 'agent'.
• When ref-mode onboarding stores OPENAI_API_KEY as an env secret ref, the post-onboard agent verification should also export OPENAI_API_KEY for the guest command. The gateway can still reject with pairing-required and fall back to embedded execution, and that fallback needs the env-backed credential available in the shell.
• On the fresh Tahoe snapshot, brew exists but node may be missing from PATH in noninteractive exec. Use /opt/homebrew/bin/node when needed.
• Fresh host-served tgz installs should install as guest root with HOME=/var/root, then run onboarding as the desktop user via prlctl exec --current-user.
• Root-installed tgz smoke can log plugin blocks for world-writable extensions/*; do not treat that as an onboarding or gateway failure unless plugin loading is the task.

Windows flow

• Preferred entrypoint: pnpm test:parallels:windows
• Use the snapshot closest to pre-openclaw-native-e2e-2026-03-12.
• Default upgrade coverage on Windows should now include: fresh snapshot -> site installer pinned to the requested stable tag -> openclaw update --channel dev on the guest. Keep the older host-tgz upgrade path only when the caller explicitly passes --target-package-spec.
• Optional exact npm-tag baseline on Windows: bash scripts/e2e/parallels-windows-smoke.sh --mode upgrade --target-package-spec openclaw@<tag> --json. That lane installs the published npm tarball as baseline, then runs openclaw update --channel dev.
• Optional forward-fix Windows validation: bash scripts/e2e/parallels-windows-smoke.sh --mode upgrade --upgrade-from-packed-main --json. That lane installs the packed current-main npm tgz as baseline, then runs openclaw update --channel dev.
• Always use prlctl exec --current-user; plain prlctl exec lands in NT AUTHORITY\\SYSTEM.
• Prefer explicit npm.cmd and openclaw.cmd.
• Use PowerShell only as the transport with -ExecutionPolicy Bypass, then call the .cmd shims from inside it.
• Current Windows Node installs expose corepack as a .cmd shim. If a release-to-dev lane sees corepack on PATH but openclaw update --channel dev still behaves as if corepack is missing, treat that as an exec-shim regression first.
• If an exact published-tag Windows lane fails during preflight with npm run build and 'pnpm' is not recognized, remember that the guest is still executing the old published updater. Validate the fix with --upgrade-from-packed-main, then wait for the next tagged npm release before expecting the historical tag lane to pass.
• Multi-word openclaw agent --message ... checks should call & $openclaw ... inside PowerShell, not Start-Process ... -ArgumentList against openclaw.cmd, or Commander can see split argv and throw too many arguments for 'agent'.
• Windows installer/tgz phases now retry once after guest-ready recheck; keep new Windows smoke steps idempotent so a transport-flake retry is safe.
• If a Windows retry sees the VM become suspended or stopped, resume/start it before the next prlctl exec; otherwise the second attempt just repeats the same rc=255.
• Windows global npm install -g phases can stay quiet for a minute or more even when healthy; inspect the phase log before calling it hung, and only treat it as a regression once the retry wrapper or timeout trips.
• The Windows baseline-package helpers now auto-dump the latest guest npm-cache/_logs/*-debug-0.log tail on timeout or nonzero completion. Read that tail in the phase log before opening a second guest shell.
• Fresh Windows tgz install phases should also use the background PowerShell runner plus done-file/log-drain pattern; do not rely on one long-lived prlctl exec ... powershell ... npm install -g transport for package installs.
• Windows release-to-dev helpers should log where pnpm before and after the update and require where pnpm to succeed post-update. That proves the updater installed or enabled pnpm itself instead of depending on a smoke-only bootstrap.
• Fresh Windows ref-mode onboard should use the same background PowerShell runner plus done-file/log-drain pattern as the npm-update helper, including startup materialization checks, host-side timeouts on short poll prlctl exec calls, and retry-on-poll-failure behavior for transient transport flakes.
• Fresh Windows daemon-health reachability should use a hello-only gateway probe and a longer per-probe timeout than the default local attach path; full health RPCs are too eager during initial startup on current main.
• Fresh Windows ref-mode agent verification should set OPENAI_API_KEY in the PowerShell environment before invoking openclaw.cmd agent, for the same pairing-required fallback reason as macOS.
• The standalone Windows upgrade smoke lane should stop the managed gateway after upgrade.install-main and before upgrade.onboard-ref. Restarting before onboard can leave the old process alive on the pre-onboard token while onboard rewrites ~/.openclaw/openclaw.json, which then fails gateway-health with unauthorized: gateway token mismatch.
• If standalone Windows upgrade fails with a gateway token mismatch but pnpm test:parallels:npm-update passes, trust the mismatch as a standalone ref-onboard ordering bug first; the npm-update helper does not re-run ref-mode onboard on the same guest.
• Keep onboarding and status output ASCII-clean in logs; fancy punctuation becomes mojibake in current capture paths.
• If you hit an older run with rc=255 plus an empty fresh.install-main.log or upgrade.install-main.log, treat it as a likely prlctl exec transport drop after guest start-up, not immediate proof of an npm/package failure.

Linux flow

• Preferred entrypoint: pnpm test:parallels:linux
• Use the snapshot closest to fresh Ubuntu 24.04.3 ARM64.
• If that exact VM is missing on the host, any Ubuntu guest with major version >= 24 is acceptable; prefer the closest versioned Ubuntu guest with a fresh poweroff snapshot. On Peter's host today, that is Ubuntu 25.10.
• Use plain prlctl exec; --current-user is not the right transport on this snapshot.
• Fresh snapshots may be missing curl, and apt-get update can fail on clock skew. Bootstrap with apt-get -o Acquire::Check-Date=false update and install curl ca-certificates.
• Fresh main tgz smoke still needs the latest-release installer first because the snapshot has no Node or npm before bootstrap.
• This snapshot does not have a usable systemd --user session; managed daemon install is unsupported.
• The Linux smoke now falls back to a manual setsid openclaw gateway run --bind loopback --port 18789 --force launch with HOME=/root and the provider secret exported, then verifies gateway status --deep --require-rpc when available.
• The Linux manual gateway launch should wait for gateway status --deep --require-rpc inside the gateway-start phase; otherwise the first status probe can race the background bind and fail a healthy lane.
• If Linux gateway bring-up fails, inspect /tmp/openclaw-parallels-linux-gateway.log in the guest phase logs first; the common failure mode is a missing provider secret in the launched gateway environment.

Discord roundtrip

• Discord roundtrip is optional and should be enabled with:
  • --discord-token-env
  • --discord-guild-id
  • --discord-channel-id
• Keep the Discord token only in a host env var.
• Use installed openclaw message send/read, not node openclaw.mjs message ....
• Set channels.discord.guilds as one JSON object, not dotted config paths with snowflakes.
• Avoid long prlctl enter or expect-driven Discord config scripts; prefer prlctl exec --current-user /bin/sh -lc ... with short commands.
• For a narrower macOS-only Discord proof run, the existing parallels-discord-roundtrip skill is the deep-dive companion.