openclaw/docs/cli/claws.md

summary, read_when, title

summary	read_when	title
Add, inspect, and remove experimental Claw agent packages	You want to validate a grouped Claw manifest You want to preview or add one agent from a Claw You need to inspect Claw ownership, drift, or cleanup behavior	Claws

openclaw claws

A Claw is a versioned setup for one new OpenClaw agent. It can describe the agent configuration, workspace files, skills, plugins, MCP servers, and cron jobs that agent needs. A Claw does not replace or modify an existing agent.

Claws are experimental. Their schema, command output, and lifecycle may change. Enable the command surface explicitly:

export OPENCLAW_EXPERIMENTAL_CLAWS=1

The current CLI reads a local package directory or grouped JSON manifest. Publishing, searching, and installing whole Claws through ClawHub are a separate registry track and are not part of this command surface yet.

Create a grouped manifest

Start with a version 1 JSON manifest:

{
  "schemaVersion": 1,
  "agent": {
    "id": "incident-triage",
    "name": "Incident triage",
    "tools": { "deny": ["exec"] }
  },
  "workspace": { "bootstrapFiles": {} },
  "packages": [],
  "mcpServers": {},
  "cronJobs": []
}

Package and workspace paths must remain inside the package root. Manifests are limited to 1 MiB, package metadata to 256 KiB, and workspace sources enforce separate per-file and aggregate limits. Workspace sources also reject symlinked parents.

Workspace files are declared by path and read from package sidecars. Bootstrap files such as SOUL.md use named entries; additional files use package-relative sources and workspace-relative targets:

{
  "workspace": {
    "bootstrapFiles": {
      "SOUL.md": { "source": "workspace/SOUL.md" }
    },
    "files": [
      {
        "source": "workspace/reference/policy.md",
        "path": "reference/policy.md"
      }
    ]
  }
}

Skills and plugins use exact ClawHub versions:

{
  "packages": [
    {
      "kind": "skill",
      "source": "clawhub",
      "ref": "incident-triage",
      "version": "1.0.0"
    },
    {
      "kind": "plugin",
      "source": "clawhub",
      "ref": "@acme/audit-plugin",
      "version": "2.0.0"
    }
  ]
}

The dry run uses the existing skill and plugin preflight paths to resolve the exact artifact, integrity, and any ClawHub trust warning before consent. The warning remains visible in the integrity-bound plan. Apply installs missing artifacts or reuses matching ones and records whether the Claw introduced or referenced each resource. Plugins remain process-wide OpenClaw capabilities rather than per-agent installations.

Inspect and preview

Validate the source without planning local changes:

openclaw claws inspect ./incident-triage.claw.json

Preview all proposed lifecycle actions:

openclaw claws add ./incident-triage.claw.json --dry-run --json

The plan reports the derived agent and workspace, every proposed action, prerequisites, blockers, distinct capability escalations, and a planIntegrity digest. Capability records show the exact package, MCP, scheduled-work, sandbox, tool, or heartbeat effect. Review the plan before creating the agent:

openclaw claws add ./incident-triage.claw.json \
  --yes \
  --plan-integrity <SHA256_FROM_DRY_RUN>

--yes alone is insufficient. OpenClaw rebuilds the plan and rejects consent when the source, destination, or live configuration changed after preview. Use --agent-id or --workspace during both preview and apply when package defaults collide with local state.

Adding a Claw creates the new agent and workspace configuration, writes declared workspace files, installs or reuses declared skill and plugin artifacts, and records provenance. Existing files are not overwritten, and retries fail closed when owned content drifted. Later Claws stages add other declared resources.

Inspect installed state

openclaw claws status
openclaw claws status incident-triage --json

status compares the installed agent and its recorded workspace and package provenance with current state. It reports incomplete installs, missing resources, and drift without changing local state.

Claw provenance distinguishes two relationships:

• Managed: the Claw introduced and currently manages the resource. It is a cleanup candidate when unchanged and no conflicting owner remains.
• Referenced: the resource existed independently or is shared. Removal releases this Claw's reference and retains the resource by default.

This is not a reference count. Ordinary plugin, skill, and agent commands keep their existing behavior; Claws add provenance and guarded lifecycle operations on top.

Remove an installed Claw

Preview removal before selecting cleanup:

openclaw claws remove incident-triage --dry-run --json
openclaw claws remove incident-triage \
  --yes \
  --plan-integrity <SHA256_FROM_DRY_RUN>

The default removes eligible managed state and releases referenced state. Modified files and resources with another current owner are retained or blocked. Cleanup choices are part of the plan digest; --yes never broadens them. Globally installed plugins are retained while this Claw's reference is released; use the ordinary plugin lifecycle separately when you intend to uninstall a process-wide plugin.

To remove unchanged Claw-introduced references that have no other current owner, include --remove-unused in both preview and apply. To select exact referenced resources instead, repeat --remove-referenced:

openclaw claws remove incident-triage \
  --dry-run \
  --remove-referenced 'plugin:@acme/audit-plugin@2.0.0'

Use --force-referenced only after reviewing the displayed dependents, independent owners, and pre-existing origin. It allows selected cleanup despite those conflicts; it does not skip plan-integrity consent.

Export an installed agent

Export creates a new package directory and fails if the destination exists or managed state has drifted:

openclaw claws export incident-triage --out ./incident-triage-export --json

The result contains package.json, openclaw.claw.json, and managed workspace sidecars. It is a portable Claw package, not a whole-instance backup: unrelated agents, credentials, sessions, and unowned local state are excluded.

Command reference

Command	Purpose
claws inspect <source>	Validate a package directory or JSON manifest.
claws add <source>	Preview or create one new agent and workspace.
claws status [claw-or-agent]	Report installed state, ownership, and drift.
claws remove <claw-or-agent>	Preview or remove the agent and eligible resources.
claws export <agent> --out <path>	Create a portable package from an installed agent.

Use --json for experimental machine-readable output.

See also

• Agents
• Skills
• Plugins