NanoClaw Container Debugging

This guide covers debugging the containerized agent execution system.

Architecture Overview

The host is a single Node process that orchestrates per-session agent containers. The two session DBs are the sole IO surface between host and container — there is no IPC, no file watcher, and no stdin piping.

Host (Node)                                Container (Bun, Linux VM)
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
src/container-runner.ts                    container/agent-runner/src/
    │                                          │
    │ spawns one container per session          │ polls inbound.db for work,
    │ with the session folder mounted          │ calls the agent provider,
    │ at /workspace                            │ writes replies to outbound.db
    │                                          │
    ├── data/v2-sessions/<group>/<session>/ ──> /workspace
    │     ├── inbound.db   (host writes, container reads RO)
    │     ├── outbound.db  (container writes, host reads)
    │     └── .heartbeat   (container touches → /workspace/.heartbeat)
    ├── groups/<folder> ─────────────────────> /workspace/agent  (cwd)
    ├── <group>/.claude-shared ──────────────> /home/node/.claude
    └── agent-runner src + skills ───────────> /app/src, /app/skills

Message flow: host writes a row to inbound.db (messages_in) and wakes the container; the container's poll loop picks it up, runs the agent, and writes the reply to outbound.db (messages_out); the host's delivery poll reads messages_out and sends it through the channel adapter. See docs/db.md and docs/db-session.md for the full two-DB model.

Container identity: the container runs as user node with HOME=/home/node. Per-group Claude state (settings, session history) lives in <group>/.claude-shared on the host, mounted to /home/node/.claude.

Log Locations

Containers run with --rm, so the container's own filesystem is gone after it exits. The host streams container stderr into logs/nanoclaw.log at debug level, tagged with container=<group folder>; raise the log level (below) to see it. If the agent silently failed inside an exited container, there is no persistent in-container log — reconstruct from the session DBs and the host log.

Enabling Debug Logging

Set LOG_LEVEL=debug for verbose output, including streamed container stderr:

# For development
LOG_LEVEL=debug pnpm run dev

# For launchd service (macOS), add to plist EnvironmentVariables:
<key>LOG_LEVEL</key>
<string>debug</string>
# For systemd service (Linux), add to unit [Service] section:
# Environment=LOG_LEVEL=debug

Debug level shows full mount configurations, the container spawn command, and streamed container stderr lines.

Inspecting Session DBs

The two session DBs are where the message flow lives. Use the in-tree query wrapper (it goes through the better-sqlite3 dep that setup already installs, avoiding a dependency on the sqlite3 CLI):

# List sessions and their agent group / messaging group from the central DB
pnpm exec tsx scripts/q.ts data/v2.db "SELECT id, agent_group_id, messaging_group_id, status, container_status, last_active FROM sessions"

# Or via the admin CLI
ncl sessions list

# Did the message reach the container? (inbound.db, host writes / container reads)
pnpm exec tsx scripts/q.ts data/v2-sessions/<group>/<session>/inbound.db \
  "SELECT seq, kind, status, timestamp FROM messages_in ORDER BY seq DESC LIMIT 10"

# Did the agent produce a reply? (outbound.db, container writes / host reads)
pnpm exec tsx scripts/q.ts data/v2-sessions/<group>/<session>/outbound.db \
  "SELECT seq, kind, timestamp FROM messages_out ORDER BY seq DESC LIMIT 10"

# Container-side processing status for each inbound message
pnpm exec tsx scripts/q.ts data/v2-sessions/<group>/<session>/outbound.db \
  "SELECT message_id, status, status_changed FROM processing_ack ORDER BY status_changed DESC LIMIT 10"

Reading the flow:

• messages_in has the message but no matching messages_out → the container never produced a reply (check processing_ack, then logs/nanoclaw.log for spawn/exit and container stderr).
• messages_out has a reply but the user never received it → a delivery problem (see issue 1 below).
• messages_in is empty → routing never reached this session (check the router log lines and the central wiring with ncl wirings list).

Common Issues

1. "No adapter for channel type" / Messages silently lost (null platform_message_id)

Symptom: The bot stops replying. logs/nanoclaw.error.log shows repeated:

WARN No adapter for channel type channelType="telegram"
WARN No adapter for channel type channelType="signal"

The main log shows "Message delivered" entries with platformMsgId=undefined — meaning the delivery poll ran, found no adapter, and marked the message delivered without sending it.

Root cause: two NanoClaw service instances running simultaneously.

When a second service instance is active with a stale binary, it has no channel adapters registered. Its delivery poll races the working instance and wins — marking outbound messages delivered without ever sending them.

Diagnosis:

# Check for duplicate running instances
ps aux | grep 'nanoclaw/dist/index.js' | grep -v grep

# Check which services are active (Linux)
systemctl --user list-units 'nanoclaw*' --all

# Confirm channel adapters registered by the current process
grep "Channel adapter started" logs/nanoclaw.log | tail -10

Fix:

1. Identify which service has the correct binary and EnvironmentFile (the one whose log shows the expected channels — e.g. signal, telegram, cli — all started).
2. Stop and disable the stale duplicate service:

   systemctl --user stop nanoclaw.service   # or whichever is the old one
   systemctl --user disable nanoclaw.service

3. If the remaining service unit is missing EnvironmentFile, add it:

   # Edit the service unit — add this line under [Service]:
   # EnvironmentFile=/home/[user]/nanoclaw/.env
   systemctl --user daemon-reload
   systemctl --user restart nanoclaw-v2-<id>.service

4. Verify only one instance runs: ps aux | grep nanoclaw/dist/index.js | grep -v grep

Messages marked delivered with a null platform_message_id are not automatically retried. Ask the user to resend.

2. Container exits immediately / agent produces no reply

A spawned container that exits without writing to outbound.db shows up in logs/nanoclaw.log as a Container exited line with a non-zero code, often preceded by streamed container=<folder> stderr (at debug level).

Authentication errors: secrets are injected per request by the OneCLI gateway — none are passed in env vars or chat context. A 401 from an API whose credential is in the vault usually means the agent is in selective secret mode and that secret was never assigned:

onecli agents list                                        # check secretMode
onecli agents set-secret-mode --id <agent-id> --mode all  # inject all matching secrets

If the gateway itself is unreachable, the container runner refuses to spawn (OneCLI gateway not applied — refusing to spawn container without credentials in the host log). Confirm the gateway is up at http://127.0.0.1:10254.

MCP server failures: a misconfigured MCP server can abort the agent run. Look for MCP initialization errors in the streamed container stderr (LOG_LEVEL=debug).

3. Mount Issues

Session and group folders are bind-mounted into the container. To see the resolved mounts for a spawn, run with LOG_LEVEL=debug and read the spawn command in logs/nanoclaw.log, or grep the mount targets directly:

grep -n "containerPath" src/container-runner.ts

Expected mount targets inside the container:

/workspace            ← session folder (inbound.db, outbound.db, .heartbeat, inbox/, outbox/)
/workspace/agent      ← agent group folder (cwd; CLAUDE.md, skills, working files)
/home/node/.claude    ← per-group .claude-shared (Claude state, settings, history)
/app/src              ← agent-runner source (read-only)
/app/skills           ← container skills (read-only)

To inspect what a fresh container sees:

docker run --rm --entrypoint /bin/bash nanoclaw-agent:latest -c 'whoami; ls -la /workspace/ /app/'

All of /workspace/ and /app/ should be owned by node. Use :ro on a -v mount for read-only.

4. Heartbeat / stale-session detection

Liveness is a file touch on /workspace/.heartbeat (host path: data/v2-sessions/<group>/<session>/.heartbeat), not a DB write. The host sweep reads its mtime plus the processing_ack claim age to decide whether a container is alive or stale. A session stuck "processing" with a stale .heartbeat mtime means the container died mid-run:

stat -f '%Sm' data/v2-sessions/<group>/<session>/.heartbeat   # macOS
stat -c '%y'  data/v2-sessions/<group>/<session>/.heartbeat   # Linux

Container CLI (ncl) inside a session

The agent reaches the central DB from inside the container via ncl, which uses the session DB transport (container/agent-runner/src/cli/ncl.ts). On the host, ncl connects over a Unix socket (src/cli/socket-server.ts). If ncl calls fail from inside a container, check the agent group's cli_scope in its container config:

ncl groups config get --id <group-id>   # look at cli_scope: disabled | group | global

disabled rejects every cli_request; group scopes the agent to its own group's groups/sessions/destinations/members; global is unrestricted.

Restarting a session's container

# Restart all containers for an agent group
ncl groups restart --id <group-id>

# Restart and rebuild the image first (after package/Dockerfile changes)
ncl groups restart --id <group-id> --rebuild

# Restart and wake immediately with a message
ncl groups restart --id <group-id> --message "on_wake test"

# Restart with a genuinely fresh provider context
ncl groups restart --id <group-id> --fresh

--fresh clears the persisted provider continuation after the old container exits, then wakes the replacement. Without --message or --fresh, the container comes back on the next user message. From inside a container, --id is auto-filled and only the calling session restarts.

Manual Container Probes

The container's entry point is exec bun run /app/src/index.ts; it talks only to the mounted session DBs, so there is no JSON to pipe in. To probe the image directly:

# Interactive shell in the image
docker run --rm -it --entrypoint /bin/bash nanoclaw-agent:latest

# Check the image contents
docker run --rm --entrypoint /bin/bash nanoclaw-agent:latest -c '
  node --version
  bun --version
  ls /app/src/
'

Provider SDK Options

The default provider wraps the Claude Agent SDK in container/agent-runner/src/providers/claude.ts. The query is configured roughly as:

query({
  prompt: input.prompt,
  options: {
    cwd: input.cwd,                 // /workspace/agent
    allowedTools: [...TOOL_ALLOWLIST, ...mcpAllowPatterns],
    disallowedTools: SDK_DISALLOWED_TOOLS,
    permissionMode: 'bypassPermissions',
    settingSources: ['project', 'user', 'local'],
    mcpServers: { ... },
  },
})

Each registered MCP server's allow pattern is derived from the mcpServers map, so registering a server already exposes its tools.

Rebuilding After Changes

# Rebuild host TypeScript
pnpm run build

# Rebuild the agent container image
./container/build.sh

# Force a truly clean rebuild (the buildkit cache retains stale COPY files)
docker builder prune -af
./container/build.sh

Clearing a Session

Conversation continuity lives in the container-owned session_state table in outbound.db (the provider's session/continuation id). The agent's /clear clears it. To reset a session from the host, remove the session folder so a fresh one is provisioned on the next message:

# Inspect first
ncl sessions get <session-id>

# Remove a single session's folder (host re-provisions both DBs on next message)
rm -rf data/v2-sessions/<group>/<session>/

Quick Diagnostic Script

echo "=== Checking NanoClaw v2 Setup ==="

echo -e "\n1. Container runtime running?"
docker info &>/dev/null && echo "OK" || echo "NOT RUNNING - start Docker Desktop (macOS) or sudo systemctl start docker (Linux)"

echo -e "\n2. Agent image exists?"
docker run --rm --entrypoint /bin/echo nanoclaw-agent:latest "OK" 2>/dev/null || echo "MISSING - run ./container/build.sh"

echo -e "\n3. OneCLI gateway reachable?"
curl -fsS http://127.0.0.1:10254/ >/dev/null 2>&1 && echo "OK" || echo "CHECK - gateway not responding on 127.0.0.1:10254"

echo -e "\n4. Central DB present?"
[ -f data/v2.db ] && echo "OK" || echo "MISSING - run setup"

echo -e "\n5. Mount targets in container-runner?"
grep -q "containerPath: '/workspace'" src/container-runner.ts && echo "OK" || echo "CHECK - session mount target changed"

echo -e "\n6. Single host instance running?"
N=$(ps aux | grep 'nanoclaw/dist/index.js' | grep -vc grep)
[ "$N" -le 1 ] && echo "OK ($N)" || echo "DUPLICATE - $N instances; stop the stale one (see issue 1)"

echo -e "\n7. Recent host errors?"
tail -n 5 logs/nanoclaw.error.log 2>/dev/null || echo "No error log yet"