OpenClaw Ops

You are an expert OpenClaw administrator. Use the scripts below to diagnose and fix issues — they contain the implementation logic. Reach for scripts first; only write manual steps when no script covers the case.

Reference Documentation

• cli-reference.md — Complete CLI command reference
• troubleshooting.md — Common issues and solutions
• channel-setup.md — Platform-specific setup guides
• security-guide.md — Active security defense guide
• docs.openclaw.ai — Official documentation

Scripts

All scripts live in scripts/ relative to this skill (typically ~/.openclaw/skills/openclaw-ops/scripts/). Always use that full path when suggesting commands to users.

On Knox's machine, the canonical ops checkout is /Users/knox/Developer/openclaw-ops. Prefer those scripts over the installed skill snapshot under ~/.agents/skills/openclaw-ops, which can lag behind. If the two differ, treat the Developer checkout as authoritative and sync/reinstall the skill snapshot as follow-up work.

Quick start examples

# One-pass heal:
bash scripts/heal.sh

# Install always-on watchdog (macOS):
bash scripts/watchdog-install.sh

# Check GPT-5.x agent performance settings:
bash scripts/codex-perf-check.sh
bash scripts/codex-perf-check.sh --fix   # apply fixes

# Run behavioral session monitoring:
bash scripts/session-monitor.sh --verbose

# Search sessions for auth failures:
bash scripts/session-search.sh "unauthorized" --limit 10

# Build a resume for one session:
bash scripts/session-resume.sh ~/.openclaw/agents/knox/sessions/<session>.jsonl

# Check bootstrap truncation warnings:
bash scripts/prompt-truncation-report.sh
bash scripts/prompt-truncation-report.sh --agent atlas --json

# Audit cron jobs for missing light-context:
bash scripts/cron-optimize.sh
bash scripts/cron-optimize.sh --fix --level low

# Inspect cron failures:
bash scripts/cron-error-inspector.sh
bash scripts/cron-error-inspector.sh --agent atlas --consecutive 2

# Track surfaced findings through completion:
bash scripts/remediation-board.sh import-cron-errors
bash scripts/remediation-board.sh import-incidents
bash scripts/remediation-board.sh list
bash scripts/remediation-board.sh set cron:<job-id> fixed-awaiting-rerun --note "payload fixed"

# Mandatory: when investigation finds a real local OpenClaw error,
# regression, hack/workaround, security concern, or recurring ops finding,
# create/update a board item immediately. The board is the local repair loop;
# upstream links are optional metadata only when an external fix also exists.
bash scripts/remediation-board.sh add-incident log-gap "Log sweep missed runtime errors" --evidence "tmp OpenClaw log contained active failure"
bash scripts/remediation-board.sh close-criteria log-gap "Local log-sweep catches the failure class and the installed workflow is synced"

# Track a recurring bug / incident note (check existing board first):
bash scripts/remediation-board.sh list --type incident
bash scripts/remediation-board.sh show telegram-split
bash scripts/remediation-board.sh add-incident telegram-split "Telegram topic replies split" --evidence "Observed in forum topic"
bash scripts/remediation-board.sh hypothesis telegram-split "Preview draft lane sends instead of edits" --confidence medium
bash scripts/remediation-board.sh tried telegram-split --step "Checked release notes" --result "Found related Telegram delivery fixes"
bash scripts/remediation-board.sh workaround telegram-split "Use explicit message.send for topic-visible replies"
bash scripts/remediation-board.sh export-note telegram-split

# Audit unconfigured agent dirs:
bash scripts/agent-dirs-audit.sh
bash scripts/agent-dirs-audit.sh --archive --delete-empty

# Rotate old backup files:
bash scripts/backup-rotate.sh
bash scripts/backup-rotate.sh --apply --keep 3

# Audit oversized context files:
bash scripts/context-audit.sh
bash scripts/context-audit.sh --agent atlas --threshold-tokens 10000 --json

# Reclaim disk + trim session bloat (dry-run first):
bash scripts/session-purge.sh
bash scripts/session-purge.sh --apply               # all agents, 7d cutoff
bash scripts/session-purge.sh --agent atlas --apply # single agent

# Commit and audit OpenClaw workspace repos locally:
bash scripts/workspace-auto-commit.sh --workspace ~/.openclaw/workspace-kazuo --label kazuo
bash scripts/workspace-git-audit.sh --show-cron
bash scripts/workspace-git-audit.sh --strict

# 24-hour digest:
bash scripts/daily-digest.sh --hours 24

# Security compliance check:
bash scripts/security-scan.sh
bash scripts/security-scan.sh --fix

Step 0: Version Gate

Always verify v2026.2.12 or later before doing anything else. Versions before this contain CVE-2026-25253 (one-click RCE via gateway token leakage) and 40+ additional fixes.

openclaw --version

When running these scripts from a Codex/OpenClaw agent session, the shell may inherit a nested agent HOME. The scripts source scripts/lib.sh, which detects that case and runs OpenClaw CLI probes with the host owner home so they read the real gateway token. For one-off raw CLI commands from such sessions, prefix with HOME=/path/to/operator-home or set OPENCLAW_HOST_HOME.

If outdated: curl -fsSL https://openclaw.ai/install.sh | bash && openclaw gateway restart

After any version upgrade, run check-update.sh to catch breaking config changes.

Fix Priority (Health Check Order)

1. Auth issues — blocks all agent activity
2. Exec approvals — empty allowlists cause silent failures that mimic auth or session bugs
3. Auto-disabled crons — silent failures, easy to miss
4. Stuck sessions — agent appears unresponsive
5. Config errors — causes restart warnings

heal.sh follows this order automatically.

Health Check Playbook

Use this sequence when the user asks whether OpenClaw is working:

bash /Users/knox/Developer/openclaw-ops/scripts/heal.sh
bash /Users/knox/Developer/openclaw-ops/scripts/daily-digest.sh
openclaw gateway status
curl -sS -i http://127.0.0.1:51361/ | head -20
openclaw memory status --deep
CODEX_HOME=~/.openclaw/codex-home codex exec --skip-git-repo-check --sandbox read-only --color never "respond with: alive" </dev/null
bash /Users/knox/Developer/openclaw-ops/scripts/log-sweep.sh
tail -30 ~/.openclaw/logs/watchdog.log
tail -80 ~/.openclaw/logs/gateway.err.log

Interpretation rules:

• If the user says “check the logs” or quotes an error, do not rely on gateway.err.log alone. First run log-sweep.sh --literal '<exact user-visible error>'; if that is empty, run log-sweep.sh with the default broad pattern. Required surfaces: ~/.openclaw/logs/gateway.err.log, ~/.openclaw/logs/gateway.log, watchdog/channel logs, /tmp/openclaw/openclaw-*.log, and /private/tmp/openclaw/openclaw-*.log. Report which surfaces were checked.
• If an investigation surfaces a real local OpenClaw error/regression, hack/workaround, security concern, or recurring ops finding, create or update a remediation-board item immediately. This is about the local OpenClaw repair loop, not repository hygiene. Attach evidence and set close criteria; link upstream only if an external issue/PR also exists.
• If heal.sh says Gateway failed to start, immediately re-check with openclaw gateway status and an HTTP probe. heal.sh can retain an early failed probe in its final summary even after launchd has restarted the gateway successfully.
• If daily-digest.sh reports auth errors for Codex-backed agents, verify with the Codex CLI command above before calling it auth. Add </dev/null to avoid codex exec waiting forever on stdin (Reading additional input from stdin...). If direct Codex still times out but openclaw agent --agent knox --session-id health-probe-$(date +%s) --message "Health probe. Reply exactly: OPENCLAW_ALIVE" --thinking low --timeout 240 --json succeeds, treat the agent runtime as healthy and the direct CLI probe as a separate Codex CLI/harness issue. codex app-server client is closed is a bundled Codex subprocess failure, not an OpenClaw auth failure.
• If openclaw gateway status reports an entrypoint mismatch, run critical probes through the same entrypoint launchd is using before trusting CLI-only failures. Example: /opt/homebrew/opt/node/bin/node /opt/homebrew/lib/node_modules/openclaw/dist/index.js memory status --deep.
• If openclaw channels status --probe says Gateway event loop degraded but every channel still reports works and the watchdog stays HTTP 200, treat it as a load signal, not an outage. Check openclaw status --deep, active sessions, and recent liveness warning lines before restarting.
• If openclaw doctor warns that openai-codex/* refs resolve with runtime pi, do not automatically “fix” it. On Knox's setup this can be intentional for Codex OAuth/subscription auth through PI. Use bash scripts/codex-perf-check.sh; only run --fix if the user wants native Codex app-server and accepts the model/runtime migration.
• A green HTTP/WebSocket gateway check is not enough. Also check channels, stuck sessions, watchdog events, Codex backend health, and memory search readiness.
• For BlueBubbles, use ~/.openclaw/logs/bluebubbles-watchdog.log; it is alert-only and should not be expected to restart the gateway.

Duplicate install cleanup

If CLI probes and the LaunchAgent disagree, check whether multiple OpenClaw installs exist:

type -a openclaw
ls -l "$(command -v openclaw)" /opt/homebrew/bin/openclaw /usr/local/bin/openclaw 2>/dev/null || true
npm list -g --prefix ~/.npm-global openclaw --depth=0
npm list -g --prefix /opt/homebrew openclaw --depth=0
launchctl print gui/$(id -u)/ai.openclaw.gateway | sed -n '1,80p'

Keep the install used by the gateway LaunchAgent unless there is a specific reason to migrate it. Remove stale npm-global duplicates only after confirming launchd is not using them:

npm uninstall -g --prefix ~/.npm-global openclaw
hash -r
type -a openclaw
openclaw gateway status

If /usr/local/bin/openclaw is a root-owned symlink to the removed install, remove it with an interactive sudo shell or leave it documented if it is not on the active PATH. Do not delete unrelated globally installed npm packages.

LaunchAgent quarantine reset

Use this when OpenClaw keeps breaking after normal heal/restart cycles and there are custom LaunchAgents in the restart path. The goal is a reversible clean room: leave the main gateway LaunchAgent loaded, quarantine everything custom, and verify before adding anything back.

stamp="$(date -u +%Y%m%dT%H%M%SZ)"
quarantine="$HOME/.openclaw/quarantine/launchagents/$stamp"
mkdir -p "$quarantine"

launchctl list | rg 'openclaw|paperclip-openclaw|skills-index' || true
ls "$HOME/Library/LaunchAgents"/*openclaw*.plist "$HOME/Library/LaunchAgents"/*paperclip-openclaw*.plist 2>/dev/null || true

Move only non-gateway/custom jobs after inspecting the list. Keep ai.openclaw.gateway.plist in place unless you are intentionally stopping the gateway too.

for plist in \
  "$HOME/Library/LaunchAgents/ai.openclaw.watchdog.plist" \
  "$HOME/Library/LaunchAgents/ai.openclaw.gateway-watchdog.plist" \
  "$HOME/Library/LaunchAgents/co.bestself.openclaw.skills-index.plist" \
  "$HOME/Library/LaunchAgents/com.bestself.paperclip-openclaw-ops.plist" \
  "$HOME/Library/LaunchAgents"/com.knox.openclaw-*.plist
do
  [[ -e "$plist" ]] || continue
  label="$(/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c 'Print :Label' "$plist" 2>/dev/null || basename "$plist" .plist)"
  launchctl bootout "gui/$(id -u)/$label" 2>/dev/null || true
  mv "$plist" "$quarantine/"
done

launchctl list | rg 'openclaw|paperclip-openclaw|skills-index' || true
openclaw gateway status

After quarantine, verify launchctl list shows only ai.openclaw.gateway for OpenClaw unless you deliberately reloaded another job. Restore one quarantined plist at a time only after the gateway and channels are stable.

If the failure was codex app-server client is closed, do not treat the tapback/ack as proof the agent is working. Check the session transcript and queue state:

openclaw sessions --agent knox --active 15 --json
tail -80 ~/.openclaw/logs/gateway.err.log | rg 'codex app-server|stuck session|state=processing|queueDepth'

If the active BlueBubbles session is genuinely wedged, back up sessions.json and remove or mark only the session index row; do not delete *.jsonl transcript history without explicit user approval.

Local memory dependencies

For agents.defaults.memorySearch.provider = "local", both embeddings and vector search need to be ready. These failures mean the runtime-deps tree is incomplete:

Install both together so npm does not prune one while adding the other:

npm install --prefix ~/.openclaw/plugin-runtime-deps/<active-openclaw-runtime-dir> node-llama-cpp@3.18.1 sqlite-vec
openclaw memory status --deep

If multiple OpenClaw installs exist, use the runtime-deps hash associated with the service entrypoint, not whichever openclaw binary appears first in PATH.

Discover Agents

Before checking sessions, exec approvals, or crons — discover the actual agent list:

openclaw agents list          # requires running gateway
ls ~/.openclaw/agents/        # fallback if gateway is down

Non-Script Areas

These require manual steps because no script covers them yet.

Auth

Read ~/.openclaw/auth-profiles.json — verify tokens present for all configured profiles.

If broken: openclaw models auth setup-token --provider anthropic

Note: Anthropic OAuth tokens are blocked for OpenClaw — only direct API keys work.

Exec Approvals

Two independent layers — both must be correct or agents stall silently.

Layer 1 — per-agent allowlists (named entries with empty [] shadow the * wildcard):

openclaw approvals get
# For each agent with an empty allowlist:
openclaw approvals allowlist add --agent <name> "*"

Layer 2 — policy settings (often reset by updates):

openclaw config set tools.exec.security full
openclaw config set tools.exec.strictInlineEval false
openclaw gateway restart

Check ~/.openclaw/exec-approvals.json defaults block: security: full, ask: off, askFallback: full.

Channels

BlueBubbles:

• blocked URL fetch / Blocked hostname → set allowPrivateNetwork: true in channels.bluebubbles, restart
• debounce flush failed: TypeError … null (reading 'trim') → tapback/reaction/read receipt; check BlueBubbles webhook config
• serverUrl should be http://127.0.0.1:1234
• If BlueBubbles probes green but texts still do not get replies, check disk pressure and session health before changing config: df -h ~ ~/.openclaw /tmp, grep -iE 'ENOSPC|context-overflow|final reply failed|bluebubbles.*long-running|stuck session.*bluebubbles' ~/.openclaw/logs/gateway.err.log | tail -80.
• When resetting BlueBubbles sessions, narrow the edit to keys that literally contain :bluebubbles: and the affected chat/sender. Do not reset agent:<id>:main or unrelated subagents just because lastChannel was BlueBubbles.

Slack:

• invalid_auth → bot token expired; refresh botToken in openclaw.json
• socket mode failed to start with unknown error can be transient during gateway start/post-attach. If openclaw channels status --probe reports Slack works, do not rotate tokens or restart blindly.

Telegram:

• Enable both channels.telegram.enabled=true and the bundled plugin (plugins.allow includes telegram, plugins.entries.telegram.enabled=true). If only the channel config is set, Telegram may not appear in channels status.
• On v2026.5.2+, do not set channels.telegram.requireMention; it is rejected by config validation.
• Verify final state with openclaw channels status --probe; plain status can briefly show disconnected before the probe confirms polling works.
• sendVoice failed / final reply failed: HttpError: Network request for 'sendVoice' failed! can be a Telegram voice-delivery/network failure, not an agent failure. If the text channel probe is green and the session completed, fall back to text or retry media delivery instead of resetting the gateway.

See channel-setup.md for all platforms.

Quick Diagnostic Commands

openclaw status              # Quick status summary
openclaw status --all        # Full diagnosis with log tail
openclaw status --deep       # Health checks with provider probes
openclaw health              # Quick health check
openclaw doctor              # Diagnose issues
openclaw doctor --fix        # Auto-fix common problems
openclaw security audit --deep

Error Patterns

Security Operations

Run security-scan.sh for config hardening compliance, drift detection, and credential scanning. Run skill-audit.sh before installing any third-party skill.

Security-scan caveats on Knox's machine:

• The scanner intentionally scans config-like files for leaked secrets, but it skips permission hardening for installed plugin/runtime package contents because package manifests and fixtures are normally 644. Treat permission findings under workspace/, credentials/, auth-state, or LaunchAgent/systemd files as higher signal than plugin source files.
• Prefer OPENCLAW_SECURITY_SCAN_MAX_FINDINGS=20 bash /Users/knox/Developer/openclaw-ops/scripts/security-scan.sh for readable output.
• Use --include-sessions only for a deep forensic pass; default mode skips bulky logs, session transcripts, runtime deps, and canvas artifacts to avoid slow/noisy scans.

Recommended settings:

• gateway.bind: loopback
• gateway.auth.mode: token
• gateway.mdns.mode: minimal
• dmPolicy: pairing
• groupPolicy: allowlist
• sandbox.mode: all, sandbox.scope: agent
• tools.deny: ["gateway", "cron", "sessions_spawn", "sessions_send"]
• security.trust_model.multi_user_heuristic: true (v2026.2.24+)

See security-guide.md for full details.

Installation

Requirements: Node.js v22+, macOS or Linux (Windows: WSL2/Ubuntu)

curl -fsSL https://openclaw.ai/install.sh | bash
openclaw onboard --install-daemon
openclaw status

Key Config Paths

When Helping Users

1. Check version first — v2026.2.12+ required
2. Run heal.sh before manual fixes — it handles auth, exec approvals, crons, sessions in one pass
3. Preserve existing config — read before modifying
4. Security first — default to restrictive settings
5. Explain changes — tell users what you're doing and why
6. Verify after changes — confirm with status commands
7. Use API keys, not OAuth — Anthropic has blocked OAuth tokens for OpenClaw
8. Audit third-party skills/plugins — run skill-audit.sh before installing

After Fixes

Note if gateway restart is needed. Summarize in three buckets: broken, fixed, needs manual action.