@clawops/cli

clawops

MCP-native infrastructure ops for OpenClaw — with read-only mode, destructive-action confirmation, and audit logs built in.

clawops is a CLI and MCP server for deploying and operating self-hosted OpenClaw instances. Provision on AWS, GCP, Azure, or any Linux VM — then manage day-to-day operations from the terminal, or let Claude Code and Cursor drive them through typed MCP tools with explicit safety controls.

What's new in 2.0

clawops 2.x targets OpenClaw >= 2026.9.2. The 1.x line continues for OpenClaw <= 2026.7.1-2 under the legacy dist-tag until 2027-03-31:

npm install -g @clawops/cli            # 2.x
npm install -g @clawops/cli@legacy     # 1.x maintenance

Pin the tag in CI — latest moves to 2.x, so an unpinned pipeline will change lines. CHANGELOG.md carries the full history; this section covers what changed about how clawops behaves.

Release in progress. 2.0 has not shipped yet. This section is written as the work lands so the flows stay documented while they are being changed, not reconstructed after.

Your deployment keeps its state

OpenClaw 2.0 stores sessions, transcripts and credentials in SQLite. clawops mounted no state at all, so every restart destroyed them — and a restart is what gateway restart, gateway update and config set all do.

One host directory (/var/lib/clawops/openclaw) is now bind-mounted at OpenClaw's own default location, holding the config, the database and any provider plugins. Existing deployments migrate on the next up/apply.

clawops up / clawops apply

flowchart TD
    A["clawops plan"] --> B{"config valid<br/>against OpenClaw schema?"}
    B -- no --> B1["refuse — plan is still<br/>a file you can edit"]
    B -- yes --> C["clawops apply"]
    C --> D{"OpenClaw version<br/>in supported range?"}
    D -- no --> D1["refuse — names<br/>@clawops/cli@legacy"]
    D -- yes --> E["provision host"]
    E --> F["state dir, owned 1000:1000<br/>migrate any pre-2.0 config"]
    F --> G["write config<br/>validated before writing"]
    G --> H["install provider plugins<br/>while egress exists"]
    H --> I["start gateway"]
    I --> J{"/startupz says started?"}
    J -- no --> J1["fail with the reason"]
    J -- yes --> K{"configured providers<br/>all loaded?"}
    K -- no --> K1["warn — healthy gateway,<br/>missing model backend"]
    K -- yes --> L["done"]

Three of those steps are new, and each exists because the old flow could report success while something was wrong: the config was never validated before being written, provider plugins were left to be fetched at boot (or silently missing on a deny-all host), and "started" was inferred from docker run exiting 0.

clawops gateway update

Previously: pull, run, report success. docker run exiting 0 means the container was created — and the container it replaced is already gone.

flowchart TD
    A["clawops gateway update X"] --> B{"X in supported range?"}
    B -- no --> B1["refuse before pulling"]
    B -- yes --> C["docker pull X"]
    C --> D["snapshot state database"]
    D -- cannot snapshot --> D1["refuse — no rollback point"]
    D --> E{"target release understands<br/>this schema?"}
    E -- no --> E1["refuse — downgrade across<br/>a schema boundary"]
    E -- yes --> F["swap container"]
    F --> G{"/startupz says started?"}
    G -- yes --> H["done"]
    G -- no --> I["one-shot doctor --fix<br/>in a throwaway container"]
    I --> J["re-run, re-gate"]
    J -- started --> K["done — reported as repaired"]
    J -- still not --> L["roll back to previous image"]
    L -- started --> M["rolled back, reason reported"]
    L -- still not --> N["failed — snapshot path named"]

The snapshot is not only a rollback point: database preflight refuses a live database because the schema version sits in the WAL until checkpointed, so the consolidated snapshot is what makes the compatibility check possible at all.

clawops gateway restart

A restart changes neither the deployed version nor who can reach the gateway. Both are read back from the running container rather than guessed:

flowchart LR
    A["gateway restart"] --> B["read current image"]
    B -- no container --> B1["refuse — nothing to reuse.<br/>latest and stable point at 2.0"]
    B --> C["read current publish scope"]
    C --> D["recreate with the same<br/>version and reachability"]
    D --> E{"/startupz says started?"}
    E -- no --> E1["fail with the reason"]
    E -- yes --> F["done"]

Migrating an existing 1.x deployment

flowchart TD
    A["clawops migrate"] --> B{"1.x container running?"}
    B -- no --> B1["nothing to rescue — state was<br/>already lost to an earlier restart"]
    B -- yes --> C["verified backup, inside the running container"]
    C -- "backup fails" --> C1["refused — nothing touched"]
    C --> D["extract state from the RUNNING container"]
    D --> E["chown 1000:1000"]
    E --> F["stop and remove 1.x"]
    F --> G["synthesise a valid 2.0 config"]
    G --> H["start 2.0 with the state directory"]
    H --> I{"/startupz started?"}
    I -- "no — schema still migrating" --> J["restart once"]
    J --> K{"started?"}
    K -- no --> K1["failed — points at the backup"]
    K --> L["report"]
    I -- yes --> L
    L --> M["what carried over,<br/>device identity, config to review"]

Two things about that shape are not obvious, and both came from running a real migration:

State is extracted from the running container. All 1.x state lived inside it — clawops mounted none — so stopping first destroys what the migration came to save.

The config is synthesised, not carried forward. 1.x never had one that applied; the file clawops mounted was read by nothing. Your old settings are reported as intent to review, never applied blindly — their channel blocks would not validate against 2.0 anyway.

The gateway also needs two starts: the first performs the state-schema migration and reports it as pending. migrate waits for the second rather than declaring success early.

If you ran gateway restart, gateway update or config set on a clawops before 2.0, your state is already gone — nothing was mounted to survive the container replacement. migrate says so plainly rather than pretending to rescue it.

clawops backup restore works again, and never in place

v1.7.5 made restore fail with an explanation, because the OpenClaw it supported had no restore subcommand to call. 2.0 does, and clawops delegates to it:

flowchart TD
    A["clawops backup restore --file X"] --> B["upload archive to the host"]
    B --> C["openclaw backup restore --target <staging>"]
    C -- "target not empty" --> C1["refused by OpenClaw"]
    C --> D["archive verified, expanded<br/>into a fresh directory"]
    D --> E["warnings printed verbatim<br/>time travel, channel relink,<br/>approvals, plugins"]
    E --> F["nothing activated"]
    F --> G["you stop the gateway, swap the<br/>state dir, restart, re-apply"]

clawops does not extract archives itself and does not restore in place. The final step is manual on purpose, and re-applying matters: the archive does not carry plugin node_modules, so a restored deployment starts without its model providers — looking healthy while doing it.

The archive is a credential. It carries the state database — mcp_oauth_stores, secret_store_entries, worker_environment_credentials, device_auth_tokens — unencrypted. clawops now writes it 0600 locally; it previously used the default 0644.

Model providers that need a plugin are installed for you

OpenClaw 2.0 made model providers install-gated plugins. Twenty-four ship in the image — anthropic, openai, google, ollama, openrouter among them — but not all of them. Configuring one that is not bundled, without installing it, produces a gateway that starts, reports healthy, and has no model backend.

clawops installs what your config needs, pinned to an exact version, during apply:

Resolving clawhub:@openclaw/deepseek-provider@2026.9.2…
Downloading plugin @openclaw/deepseek-provider@2026.9.2 from ClawHub…
Installed plugin: deepseek

This adds an outbound dependency the 1.x line did not have: clawhub.ai. It is needed while apply is running, not at boot — deliberately, so a failure reaches the person running the command rather than a locked-down host at 3am. Blocked, it looks like this:

fetch failed | getaddrinfo EAI_AGAIN clawhub.ai | EAI_AGAIN

clawops checks the installed provider IDs afterwards and will not call the deploy finished while a configured provider is missing. Required outbound access lists every destination and when it is needed.

Chat channels are installed for you too

Every channel in OpenClaw 2.0 is an install-gated plugin. clawops apply installs the ones your config names, during the deploy while egress exists, and then asks the gateway whether they are really installed:

[clawops] warning: the gateway is running, but these configured channels are not installed:
discord. They will never connect.

It has to ask. openclaw channels add — the obvious command — returns success even when the plugin install fails, so clawops uses openclaw plugins install and verifies against channels list --all --json.

Channel plugins are pinned to the supported runtime. The current latest does not install on it: plugin "discord" requires plugin API >=2026.9.3, but this OpenClaw runtime exposes 2026.9.2 — the same drift that forced version pins on model providers.

Telegram needs nothing installed: it ships in the image.

Bad config is caught before it is written

Config is validated against OpenClaw's own schema — captured from the image, not hand-written — before anything is sent to the host, and again before a write replaces a working file. clawops plan refuses a plan whose config the gateway would reject, while the plan is still a file you can edit.

A rejected config is kept at <path>.rejected.<timestamp> and the live one is left alone, so a validation failure never costs you what you were trying to write.

One rule is clawops's own: gateway.mode is optional in the schema and mandatory in practice — a config without it passes openclaw config validate and then exits 78.

Containers are hardened

The gateway runs with --cap-drop=ALL, --security-opt no-new-privileges, --init and --pids-limit 512. State is owned numerically by 1000:1000, matching the container's user rather than a host account that may not have that uid.

The version pin is enforced everywhere it can change

doctor, plan, up and apply refuse an OpenClaw release outside the supported range, and gateway restart reuses the version already deployed rather than resolving a moving tag. A restart changes neither the version nor who can reach it.

The gateway is no longer exposed to your network

The container publishes on 127.0.0.1:18789 instead of 0.0.0.0:18789. Reach it with clawops tunnel or a reverse proxy on the host.

Previously the wizard set allowedGatewayCidrs from the CIDR you gave for SSH, so a plaintext HTTP dashboard — token in the URL — was opened to your whole shell-access network as a side effect of one unrelated answer. To bind all interfaces deliberately, set network.publishGateway: "all".

You must act if a client or reverse proxy on another machine reaches the gateway directly, or external monitoring hits /health. A proxy on the host is unaffected; one in a container on the host needs --network host.

Health checks can actually fail

The gateway serves its Control UI on a catch-all route, so any unmatched path answers 200 with HTML:

/healthz                        200  application/json   {"ok":true,"status":"live"}
/health-typo                    200  text/html          <!doctype html>…

clawops probed with curl -fsS … >/dev/null, which succeeds on a typo. It proved something was listening on the port, not that the gateway was healthy. Probes now read the response body, and the restart gate uses /startupz rather than liveness — after a restart the process listens long before startup finishes.

clawops mcp wire actually wires something now

It has never worked — not on 2.0, not on any 1.x release. It wrote gateway.mcpClients, which is not a key OpenClaw has: checked against the config schemas of 2026.4.5, 2026.7.1-2 and 2026.9.2. The real key is top-level mcp.servers. And the entry it wrote was command: "clawops" over stdio, which spawns inside the gateway container — where clawops is not installed and nothing installs it.

On 1.x nothing validated the write, so clawops stored a key nothing read, restarted your gateway, and reported: "The gateway's AI can now run clawops commands." It could not.

flowchart TD
    A["clawops mcp wire"] --> B["openclaw mcp add --transport streamable-http"]
    B --> C{"gateway connects<br/>to the URL?"}
    C -- no --> C1["probe fails, nothing saved,<br/>clawops prints the reason"]
    C -- yes --> D["saved to mcp.servers.clawops"]
    D --> E["openclaw mcp reload"]

It delegates to openclaw mcp add now, which probes the server before saving — so "wired" means the gateway connected, not that a file was written.

You have to run the server yourself. clawops is not installed on the gateway host:

clawops mcp serve --http 18790 --bind 0.0.0.0 --token "$(openssl rand -hex 16)"
clawops mcp wire --stack prod --token <same token>

Installing clawops on the gateway host is a deliberate follow-up, not part of 2.0: it puts deployment credentials on the deployed box, and the gateway's AI is reachable from every channel it is connected to. See docs/security/threat-model.md T11.

clawops mcp serve --http serves more than one client, and asks who you are

Two bugs, found by testing against a real gateway rather than a mock.

It built one transport for the whole process, so the first client to connect claimed it and every later one — a second editor, a reconnect, the gateway's own probe — was answered "Server already initialized". HTTP mode is the multi-client mode.

It had no authentication, while exposing every tool including clawops_destroy. It now takes a bearer token, compares it in constant time, and refuses to bind anywhere but loopback without one.

The firewall follows the deployment

flowchart TD
    A["clawops plan"] --> B{"publishGateway?"}
    B -- "loopback (default)" --> C{"allowedGatewayCidrs empty?"}
    C -- no --> C1["refuse — those rules would admit<br/>traffic to a closed port"]
    C -- yes --> D["SSH rules only"]
    B -- all --> E["SSH rules + gateway rules<br/>on spec.network.gatewayPort"]
    D --> F["clawops harden"]
    E --> F
    F --> G["read the container's port bindings"]
    G --> H{"published to the network?"}
    H -- no --> H1["ufw: SSH only"]
    H -- yes --> H2["ufw: SSH + the published port"]

Three security controls were doing the opposite of what they say.

clawops harden opened the gateway port on every deployment. The ufw module ran ufw allow 18789/tcp unconditionally. Since the gateway publishes on 127.0.0.1, that opened a port nothing was listening on — a hardening step widening the firewall past what the deployment exposes. It now reads the running container's port bindings and adds the rule only when the gateway is really published, on whatever port it is published on.

The AWS security-group audit exempted the two ports it exists to check. Ports 22 and 18789 were on an "expected" list, so a group opening SSH or the gateway to 0.0.0.0/0 came back as "No unexpected open ingress rules found". It also never read IPv6 rules, so ::/0 was invisible.

The setup wizard defaulted SSH access to 0.0.0.0/0. Pressing Enter opened SSH to the whole internet, on the path most first-time users take. It offers your own IP as a /32 now, and when that cannot be detected it offers no default and requires an answer.

The gateway port comes from the plan

"network": {
  "allowedSshCidrs": ["203.0.113.4/32"],
  "allowedGatewayCidrs": [],
  "publishGateway": "loopback",
  "gatewayPort": 9443
}

One value now reaches the security-group rules, the container publish flag, the default gateway.port and the gateway URL. It was a constant redeclared in eleven places, so changing it meant finding all of them — and missing one produced a container publishing one port, a gateway listening on another, and a firewall opening a third.

Local deployments use clawops up --gateway-port 9443.

clawops doctor answers whether it works, and says so in its exit code

flowchart TD
    A["clawops doctor"] --> B["local: Node, Pulumi home,<br/>config, SSH key, credentials"]
    B --> C{"--stack given?"}
    C -- no --> Z["report"]
    C -- yes --> D["container state"]
    D --> E["deployed OpenClaw version"]
    E --> F["probe /startupz<br/>and read the body"]
    F --> G["published scope, disk,<br/>log rotation, hardening drift"]
    G --> Z
    Z --> Y{"any check failed?"}
    Y -- no --> Y1["exit 0"]
    Y -- yes --> Y2["exit 1"]

Three changes worth knowing:

It asks the gateway. doctor used to read docker inspect's healthcheck field, which the OpenClaw image does not set — so it reported "no healthcheck configured" and moved on. A running container means the process started, not that it serves. It now probes /startupz and reads the body.

It exits 1 when something failed. Only an old Node.js used to do that; an unreadable SSH key or an unsupported gateway exited 0, so a CI step running clawops doctor read a broken deployment as success. Warnings still exit 0 — a fresh machine with no stacks is unconfigured, not broken.

It is an MCP tool. clawops_doctor returns the same report as structured data, so an agent that hits a failure can find out why. It reports only; it never runs openclaw doctor --fix. --json gives the CLI the same report.

clawops agents list stops inventing an empty list

The command ended in || echo '[]', so a stopped container, a gateway still starting, or a Docker permission error all produced "No agents running." — a wrong answer rather than an error. It now fails, and says which.

Day-two commands work on AWS

gateway restart, logs, monitor, backup, agents, config set and doctor's container checks were all broken on AWS: clawops connects as ubuntu, but provisioning only put clawops in the docker group, so every Docker command failed with permission denied. GCP and Azure connect as clawops, which is why only AWS was affected.

Removed

clawops agents restart and the clawops_agents_restart MCP tool. OpenClaw 2.0 has no per-agent restart — only gateway restart and daemon restart, both of which interrupt every agent on the host. Use clawops gateway restart, or stay on @clawops/cli@legacy.

clawops agents list and clawops agents logs are unaffected.

Who this is for

• OpenClaw users who want the simplest path to self-hosting across cloud or local VMs, with reliable deploy, status checks, logs, backups, and upgrades in a single CLI.
• Claude Code / Cursor / MCP users looking for a real-world reference implementation of safe infrastructure operations through MCP — typed tool schemas, read-only mode, destructive-action confirmation, and audit logs.
• Self-hosted AI and local-first developers who want to run their own AI assistant without committing to Kubernetes, a managed SaaS platform, or a single cloud provider.

What clawops does

• Provisions and tears down OpenClaw infrastructure on AWS, GCP, Azure, and local VMs using the Pulumi Automation API (embedded — no pulumi binary required).
• Manages day-to-day operations: status, logs, SSH, tunnels, config, agents, gateway, backups.
• Exposes every operation as a typed MCP tool so AI agents can drive ops safely.
• Enforces a plan → review → apply discipline for cloud deployments.
• Emits JSON output everywhere (--json) for scripting and automation.
• Never stores cloud credentials — reads them from your environment's existing CLI profiles.

What clawops does not do

• No high availability or clustering. Optimized for single-node deployments.
• No Kubernetes. It deploys to VMs, not container orchestration platforms.
• No OpenClaw skill/agent authoring. clawops manages infrastructure; what runs on it is up to you and OpenClaw.
• No TLS or domain automation (yet). Bring your own reverse proxy or see docs/limitations.md for the manual path.
• No credential storage. Cloud credentials must be configured in your environment before using clawops. They are never written to ~/.clawops/config.json.
• No native Windows. WSL2 is fully supported; see docs/support-matrix.md.

Quick Start

npm install -g @clawops/cli
clawops setup

clawops setup is an interactive wizard that gets OpenClaw running in about 2 minutes. It handles everything in one flow — no config files to write by hand, no commands to memorize.

What the wizard does

Step 1 — Choose a deployment target

Pick an existing server you can SSH into (Linux or macOS), or a new cloud VM on AWS, GCP, or Azure. Cloud deployments walk you through authenticating with the provider CLI if you aren't already signed in.

Step 2 — Pick an LLM provider

Choose from Anthropic, OpenAI, Amazon Bedrock, Ollama, or others. The wizard prompts for your API key and saves it locally (in ~/.clawops/secrets/, chmod 600) — it is never sent anywhere except to OpenClaw on the target host when the config is applied.

Step 3 — Add chat integrations (optional)

Select any combination of Discord, Telegram, Slack, WhatsApp, or Teams. The wizard collects each integration's bot token the same way as the API key — paste it in, reference an env var, or point to a file.

Step 4 — Wire your AI editor

Select which AI apps should have access to clawops — Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf, VS Code, and Zed are all supported. The wizard writes an MCP server entry into each app's config file using the absolute binary path so the app can launch it independently.

Step 5 — Deploy

The wizard bootstraps OpenClaw on the target host over SSH (installs Docker, pulls the image, starts the container), applies your LLM and integration config, generates a gateway auth token, and prints a direct dashboard URL:

✔ All done! OpenClaw is running.
ℹ Open dashboard: http://192.168.1.50:18789?token=<your-token>
ℹ Token saved to ~/.clawops/secrets/GATEWAY_TOKEN_my-stack

Prerequisites: Node.js ≥ 22, an SSH key, and either an SSH-reachable Linux/macOS host or a cloud account with CLI credentials configured (aws configure, gcloud auth login, or az login).

For a full narrated walkthrough with example output, see docs/demo-script.md.

Manual setup — existing server

If you prefer step-by-step control, or are adding clawops to an already-running deployment:

npm install -g @clawops/cli

clawops doctor   # verify environment

clawops init --provider local --host 192.168.1.50 --user ubuntu --key-path ~/.ssh/id_ed25519
clawops up       # installs Docker + OpenClaw over SSH
clawops status

See docs/examples/local-vm.md for SSH prerequisites, firewall setup, and troubleshooting.

Manual setup — cloud (AWS)

npm install -g @clawops/cli

# Requires AWS credentials in your environment (AWS_PROFILE or ~/.aws/credentials)
clawops init --provider aws

# Edit ~/.clawops/config.json — set stateUrl to your S3 bucket

clawops plan --provider aws --stack default --out /tmp/plan.json
clawops apply /tmp/plan.json

Connect an AI editor

The setup wizard handles this automatically (Step 4). To wire or re-wire editors at any time:

clawops mcp install

This opens the same interactive checkbox used in the wizard — select Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf, VS Code, or Zed and clawops writes the MCP entry into each app's config using the correct absolute binary path.

To add the entry manually instead, paste this into your editor's MCP config:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "clawops": {
      "command": "/path/to/clawops",
      "args": ["mcp", "serve", "--read-only"]
    }
  }
}

Replace /path/to/clawops with the output of which clawops. Config file locations:

App	Path
Claude Desktop (macOS)	~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
Claude Desktop (Linux)	~/.config/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
Claude Code	~/.claude.json
Cursor	~/.cursor/mcp.json
Windsurf	~/.codeium/windsurf/mcp_config.json
VS Code (macOS)	~/Library/Application Support/Code/User/mcp.json
VS Code (Linux)	~/.config/Code/User/mcp.json
Zed	~/.config/zed/settings.json (key: context_servers)

Start with --read-only — it enables status, logs, config reads, and diagnostics while blocking mutations. Remove it only after reviewing docs/security/mcp-safety.md.

Destructive tools (clawops_destroy, clawops_up, clawops_config_set, etc.) require explicit confirmation before executing — they will never run silently.

For HTTP mode setup see docs/mcp/.

Day-to-day operations

clawops status              # Stack outputs: IP, gateway URL, SSH info
clawops logs -f             # Tail OpenClaw logs over SSH
clawops ssh                 # Interactive SSH session
clawops ssh --command "docker ps"

clawops config get maxAgents
clawops config set maxAgents 8

clawops tunnel              # Port-forward gateway UI to localhost

clawops destroy --yes       # Destroy cloud-provider stack
clawops down --yes          # Destroy local-provider stack

Commands

Command	Description
setup	First-run wizard — guided LLM, integrations, and deploy-plan generation
init	Register a stack in ~/.clawops/config.json without provisioning
up	Provision or update stack (--dry-run for preview, --gateway-port for a non-default port)
down	Destroy local-provider stack (requires --yes; --dry-run shows current outputs)
destroy	Destroy cloud-provider stack with confirmation prompt (--dry-run shows current outputs)
status	Show stack outputs: IP, gateway URL, region, provisioned time
plan	Generate a deploy-plan JSON artifact (dry-run safe)
apply	Apply a previously reviewed plan file (--dry-run validates and shows diff without applying)
ssh	Interactive SSH session or run a remote command
logs	Stream OpenClaw logs (-f, --tail N, --since 5m)
tunnel	Local port-forward to gateway UI over SSH
config	Get/set remote OpenClaw config values (--dry-run shows would-write JSON)
agents	List OpenClaw agents, or stream one agent's logs
gateway	Restart the OpenClaw gateway service
backup	Create and restore OpenClaw state backups (restore expands into a staging directory, never in place)
stacks	List named stacks and their state
doctor	Check the local machine; with --stack, the deployment's health too. --json for the report. Exits 1 on any failure
secret	Manage secrets: list, set, delete, rotate, audit
monitor	Live dashboard: gateway health, container stats, log tail, stack picker
mcp serve	Start the embedded MCP server (stdio, or HTTP with --http <port> --token <t>)
mcp install	Interactively wire clawops into AI editors
mcp wire	Wire the gateway's AI as an MCP client of clawops (verifies the connection before saving)
help	List all commands and global flags
harden	Apply security hardening to a deployed stack (SSH, UFW, fail2ban, unattended-upgrades, Docker socket; AWS: SG audit, SSM check, Flow Logs, GuardDuty)
bug	Open a pre-filled GitHub issue with system context from doctor

Full flag reference: clawops <command> --help

Plan → Apply workflow

For non-local providers, clawops enforces a review-before-apply discipline:

# 1. Generate a plan — runs `pulumi preview` internally, produces JSON
clawops plan --provider aws --region us-east-1 --out /tmp/plan.json

# 2. Review plan.json — the `diff` field shows projected changes at plan-generation time
cat /tmp/plan.json | jq .diff

# 3. Apply — reads and validates the plan file, then runs `pulumi up`
clawops apply /tmp/plan.json

# Without --yes, apply prompts: "Continue? (y/N)"
clawops apply /tmp/plan.json --yes    # skip prompt in automation

The plan JSON conforms to spec/deploy-plan.schema.json (AJV-validated) and captures reviewed intent: provider, region, instance type, CIDR ranges, and OpenClaw version. apply re-runs pulumi up using those parameters against the current live state — it does not replay a locked execution artifact. Review and apply in the same session to minimize drift risk.

See docs/plan-apply.md for full semantics, drift guidance, and the safe CI pattern.

MCP server

clawops ships an embedded MCP server. Claude Code, Cursor, and any MCP-compatible agent can drive deployments without leaving the chat interface.

Wire your editor

clawops mcp install   # interactive checkbox — writes config for selected apps

The wizard resolves the absolute binary path automatically so app launchers can find clawops without inheriting your shell's PATH. See Connect an AI editor above for manual config paths.

Wire the gateway AI

The OpenClaw gateway runs its own AI agent. Once wired, that agent can call clawops directly instead of guessing at infrastructure state:

clawops mcp wire --stack prod   # write MCP client entry into gateway config + restart

Requires OpenClaw ≥ 2026.4 on the gateway. The clawops setup wizard offers this step automatically after a successful deploy.

Stdio mode (Claude Code / Cursor / VS Code)

Start the server manually or confirm your config is correct:

clawops mcp serve --read-only   # safe for first evaluation
clawops mcp serve               # full mode — enables provisioning, config write, ssh exec

HTTP mode (remote / multi-client)

clawops mcp serve --http 3333 --bind 127.0.0.1
# MCP HTTP server listening on 127.0.0.1:3333

Do not bind to a non-loopback address without additional authentication controls in front of it.

Available tools

Tool	Toolset	Description
clawops_status	cli	Show stack outputs (what is deployed, not whether it works)
clawops_doctor	cli	Run diagnostics: local prerequisites, and with a stack, remote health
clawops_logs_tail	cli	Tail OpenClaw logs
clawops_monitor	cli	Sample gateway and host metrics
clawops_stacks_list	admin	List all stacks and their state
clawops_config_get	cli	Read a remote config value
clawops_agents_list	cli	List running agents
clawops_up	cli	Provision or update a stack
clawops_destroy	cli	Destroy a stack (elicits confirmation)
clawops_apply	cli	Apply a plan file
clawops_plan	cli	Generate a deploy plan
clawops_config_set	cli	Write a remote config value
clawops_config_unset	cli	Remove a remote config key
clawops_config_validate	cli	Validate the deployed config against the OpenClaw schema
clawops_gateway_restart	cli	Restart the gateway (elicits confirmation)
clawops_workflow_deploy_app	workflow	End-to-end deploy: plan → confirm → apply → status
clawops_workflow_recover	workflow	Diagnostic workflow for an unhealthy stack
clawops_task_status	cli	Poll a long-running task

Tools in the read toolset are also available in --read-only mode; the table's Toolset column shows the primary toolset. All other toolsets require full mode. Destructive tools require explicit confirmation (elicitation) unless yes: true is passed.

See docs/security/tool-risk-matrix.md for the full risk classification of every tool.

Configuration

Config lives at ~/.clawops/config.json (override with $CLAWOPS_HOME).

{
  "version": 1,
  "defaults": {
    "provider": "aws",
    "stack": "default"
  },
  "stacks": {
    "default": {
      "provider": "aws",
      "region": "us-east-1",
      "stateUrl": "s3://my-clawops-state"
    }
  },
  "ssh": {
    "keyPath": "~/.clawops/id_ed25519",
    "knownHostsPath": "~/.clawops/known_hosts"
  }
}

Cloud credentials are never stored in config — clawops reads them from the environment:

Provider	Credential source
AWS	AWS_PROFILE or standard AWS credential chain (~/.aws/credentials)
GCP	GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS or gcloud auth application-default login
Azure	AZURE_CLIENT_ID / AZURE_CLIENT_SECRET or az login
Local	SSH host + key configured in stacks[name].localOpts

Known limitations

See docs/limitations.md for the full list. Key points:

• Single-node deployments only — not a high-availability or clustering platform.
• clawops apply is not an immutable plan execution — see docs/plan-apply.md.
• No TLS/domain automation in the current release.
• MCP tools execute privileged operations — use --read-only for first evaluation.

Architecture

clawops
├── src/cli/          citty-based commands (one file per verb)
├── src/config/       ~/.clawops/config.json management
├── src/providers/    Cloud adapters (AWS, GCP, Azure, local)
│   ├── aws/          Pulumi inline program + ProviderAdapter
│   ├── gcp/
│   ├── azure/
│   └── local/        SSH bootstrap (no Pulumi)
├── src/pulumi/       Pulumi Automation API wrapper + output helpers
├── src/transport/    SSH client (ssh2) + connection pool + tunnels
├── src/mcp/          MCP server, tool handlers, progress tracking
├── src/plan/         Maker plan generation, AJV validation, apply
├── src/output/       ASCII table, spinner, JSON, human-readable output
├── src/errors/       Typed error hierarchy with exit codes
└── spec/             Machine-readable ground truth (JSON Schema, YAML)

Key design decisions:

• Pulumi Automation API (embedded): no pulumi binary required; Pulumi home is sandboxed to ~/.clawops/.pulumi; stack programs are inline TypeScript closures
• State in cloud blob storage: GCS (gs://), S3 (s3://), Azure Blob — no local state files, no pulumi.yaml
• SSH via ssh2: never shells out to /usr/bin/ssh; TOFU host verification against ~/.clawops/known_hosts; connection pool with 5-min idle TTL
• Plan → apply discipline: every non-local deployment goes through generatePlan() → review → applyPlan(); destructive changes always require human review of the plan JSON
• MCP-first: every CLI operation has a typed MCP tool; schemas generated from spec/mcp-tools.yaml; all destructive tools use elicitation

See docs/architecture.md for a full narrative, and docs/decisions/ for ADRs.

Cloud provider stacks

Each cloud provider is an inline Pulumi program that creates the resources below. All three share the same outputs (publicIp, gatewayUrl, sshHost, sshPort, sshUser) consumed by the SSH and config-overlay layers.

AWS

flowchart LR
    subgraph NET["Networking"]
        VPC["VPC (10.0.0.0/16)"]
        IGW[Internet Gateway]
        SUBNET["Subnet (10.0.1.0/24)"]
        RT[Route Table]
        SG["Security Group (ports 22, 18789)"]
    end
    subgraph IAM["IAM"]
        ROLE[IAM Role]
        SSM[SSM Policy Attachment]
        BED["Bedrock Policy Attachment (optional)"]
        IP[Instance Profile]
    end
    subgraph COMPUTE["Compute"]
        KP[EC2 Key Pair]
        EC2["EC2 Instance (Ubuntu 22.04, IMDSv2)"]
        EIP[Elastic IP]
    end

Detailed diagram →

GCP

flowchart LR
    subgraph NET["Networking"]
        NW[VPC Network]
        SN["Subnetwork (10.0.0.0/24)"]
        FW1["Firewall: SSH port 22 (conditional)"]
        FW2["Firewall: Gateway port 18789 (conditional)"]
        ADDR[Static External IP]
    end
    subgraph COMPUTE["Compute"]
        VM["Compute Instance (Debian 12, 20 GB)"]
    end

Detailed diagram →

Azure

flowchart LR
    RG[Resource Group]
    subgraph NET["Networking"]
        VNET["Virtual Network (10.0.0.0/16)"]
        SUBNET["Subnet (10.0.1.0/24)"]
        NSG["Network Security Group (ports 22, 18789)"]
        PIP["Public IP Address (Static)"]
        NIC[Network Interface]
    end
    subgraph COMPUTE["Compute"]
        VM["VM (Ubuntu 22.04, managed identity)"]
    end
    subgraph KV["Key Vault (optional)"]
        VAULT["Key Vault (RBAC, name max 24 chars)"]
        RA["Role Assignment (Secrets User)"]
        SECRET["Secret: gateway-token"]
    end

Detailed diagram →

Development

Setup

git clone https://github.com/dfridkin/clawops.git
cd clawops
# Node 22+ required; use nvm: nvm use
pnpm install
pnpm dev doctor        # verify toolchain

Scripts

pnpm dev                   # run CLI from src/ via tsx
pnpm build                 # tsup → dist/
pnpm test                  # vitest (1210 tests, ~13s)
pnpm test:changed          # vitest --changed (fast edit loop)
pnpm test:integration      # Docker-based SSH integration tests
pnpm typecheck             # tsc --noEmit
pnpm lint                  # eslint src/ tests/ scripts/ (--max-warnings=0)
pnpm gen:schemas           # regenerate src/providers/types.ts + src/mcp/tools/_generated.ts
pnpm gen:schemas --check   # CI guard: committed generated files match spec
pnpm changeset             # record a release note before merging

Project layout

Path	Purpose
spec/	Machine-readable ground truth: JSON Schema, YAML. Treat as source of truth.
SPEC.md	Full technical specification (milestones, rules, schemas)
DESIGN_RULES.md	25 normative rules (R1–R25) referenced throughout the codebase
docs/architecture.md	Narrative system overview
docs/plan-apply.md	Plan/apply semantics, drift guidance, CI pattern
docs/ci.md	CI integration guide: OIDC, env vars, plan → apply in CI
docs/security/	MCP safety model, tool risk matrix, redaction, audit logs
docs/providers/matrix.md	Per-provider capability matrix
docs/decisions/	Architecture Decision Records
.claude/skills/	Invokable procedures: /add-provider, /release, /tdd, /mcp-tool
.claude/rules/	Path-scoped lint rules loaded by Claude Code

Code generation

Two files are generated from spec/ and must not be hand-edited:

• src/providers/types.ts — ProviderAdapter interface from spec/providers.schema.json
• src/mcp/tools/_generated.ts — Zod schemas and type exports from spec/mcp-tools.yaml

Run pnpm gen:schemas after modifying either spec file. CI enforces this with --check.

Adding a provider

Use the /add-provider skill in Claude Code, or follow src/providers/CLAUDE.md. Every adapter must satisfy ProviderAdapter in src/providers/types.ts — do not relax the schema to fit the adapter.

Adding an MCP tool

Use the /mcp-tool skill. The skill adds the tool to spec/mcp-tools.yaml, runs pnpm gen:schemas, creates the handler in src/mcp/tools/<toolset>/<name>.ts, and wires it into the registry. All four annotation hints (readOnlyHint, destructiveHint, idempotentHint, openWorldHint) are required on every tool.

Conventional commits

feat(scope): description
fix(scope): description
docs / refactor / chore / test / perf / ci

Use pnpm changeset to record a release note before merging a feat or fix.

Milestones

Milestone	Status	What ships
M0 — Scaffold	✅	Tooling, CI, stubs, generated types
M1 — GCP MVP	✅	init / up / down / status / ssh / logs on GCP
M2 — Remote Mgmt	✅	tunnel, config, agents, gateway; SSH connection pool
M3 — AWS + Azure	✅	AWS EC2 + Azure VM adapters; stacks list
M4 — Local VM	✅	Local adapter (SSH bootstrap, no Pulumi); doctor
M5 — MCP Layer	✅	mcp serve (stdio), all CLI ops as MCP tools, progress tracking
M6 — Plan/Apply	✅	plan + apply; deploy-plan schema; MCP HTTP transport; workflow_deploy_app
M7 — v1.0 Polish	✅	Full doctor surface; destroy command; --dry-run across commands; CI guide

See docs/roadmap.md for the public roadmap and upcoming work.

License

MPL-2.0 — see LICENSE.