openclaw/docs/logging.md

summary, read_when, title

summary	read_when	title
File logs, console output, CLI tailing, and the Control UI Logs tab	You need a beginner-friendly overview of OpenClaw logging You want to configure log levels, formats, or redaction You are troubleshooting and need to find logs quickly	Logging

OpenClaw has two main log surfaces:

• File logs (JSON lines) written by the Gateway.
• Console output in the terminal running the Gateway.

The Control UI Logs tab tails the gateway file log. This page explains where logs live, how to read them, and how to configure log levels and formats.

Where logs live

By default, the Gateway writes a rolling log file per day. The default profile keeps the historical path:

/tmp/openclaw/openclaw-YYYY-MM-DD.log

Named profiles use a profile-qualified filename in the same directory:

/tmp/openclaw/openclaw-<profile>-YYYY-MM-DD.log

The filename profile segment is lowercase and limited to letters, numbers, and dashes. Simple lowercase names stay readable, so the --dev shorthand writes openclaw-dev-YYYY-MM-DD.log. Case, underscores, and literal dashes use a reversible dash escape so distinct profile names never share a log file. Oversized values set directly through the environment use a bounded hash suffix to stay within filesystem filename limits. An explicit logging.file overrides these defaults.

The date uses the gateway host's local timezone. When /tmp/openclaw is unsafe or unavailable (and always on Windows), OpenClaw uses a user-scoped openclaw-<uid> directory under the OS temp dir instead. Dated log files are pruned after 24 hours.

Each file rotates when the next write would exceed logging.maxFileBytes (default: 100 MB). OpenClaw keeps up to five numbered archives beside the active file, such as openclaw-YYYY-MM-DD.1.log or openclaw-dev-YYYY-MM-DD.1.log, and keeps writing to a fresh active log instead of suppressing diagnostics.

You can override the path in ~/.openclaw/openclaw.json:

{
  "logging": {
    "file": "/path/to/openclaw.log"
  }
}

How to read logs

CLI: live tail (recommended)

Tail the gateway log file via RPC:

openclaw logs --follow
openclaw --dev logs --follow
openclaw --profile work logs --follow

The root profile selector resolves the same profile-specific file used by the Gateway, including CLI fallback reads when local RPC is unavailable.

Options:

Flag	Default	Behavior
--follow	off	Keep tailing; reconnects with backoff on disconnect
--limit <n>	200	Max lines per fetch
--max-bytes <n>	250000	Max bytes to read per fetch
--interval <ms>	1000	Poll interval while following
--json	off	Line-delimited JSON (one event per line)
--plain	off	Force plain text in TTY sessions
--no-color	—	Disable ANSI colors
--utc	off	Render timestamps in UTC (local time is default)
--local-time	off	Accepted compatibility spelling for the local-time default; no effect beyond it
--url / --token	—	Standard Gateway RPC flags
--timeout <ms>	30000	Gateway RPC timeout
--expect-final	off	Agent-backed RPC final-response wait flag (accepted here via the shared client layer)

Output modes:

• TTY sessions: pretty, colorized, structured log lines.
• Non-TTY sessions: plain text.

When you pass an explicit --url, the CLI does not auto-apply config or environment credentials; include --token yourself, or the call fails with gateway url override requires explicit credentials.

In JSON mode, the CLI emits type-tagged objects:

• meta: stream metadata (file, source, sourceKind, service, cursor, size)
• log: parsed log entry
• notice: truncation / rotation hints
• raw: unparsed log line
• error: gateway connection failures (written to stderr)

If the implicit local loopback Gateway asks for pairing, closes during connect, or times out before logs.tail answers, openclaw logs falls back to the configured Gateway file log automatically. Explicit --url targets do not use this fallback. openclaw logs --follow is stricter: on Linux it uses the active user-systemd Gateway journal by PID when available, and otherwise retries the live Gateway with backoff instead of following a potentially stale side-by-side file.

If the Gateway is unreachable, the CLI prints a short hint to run:

openclaw doctor

Control UI (web)

The Control UI's Logs tab tails the same file using logs.tail. See Control UI for how to open it.

Channel-only logs

To filter channel activity (WhatsApp/Telegram/etc), use:

openclaw channels logs --channel whatsapp

--channel defaults to all; --lines <n> (default 200) and --json are also available.

Log formats

File logs (JSONL)

Each line in the log file is a JSON object. The CLI and Control UI parse these entries to render structured output (time, level, subsystem, message).

File-log JSONL records also include machine-filterable top-level fields when available:

• hostname: gateway host name.
• message: flattened log message text for full-text search.
• agent_id: active agent id when the log call carries agent context.
• session_id: active session id/key when the log call carries session context.
• channel: active channel when the log call carries channel context.

OpenClaw preserves the original structured log arguments alongside these fields so existing parsers that read numbered tslog argument keys keep working.

Talk, realtime voice, and managed-room activity emits bounded lifecycle log records through this same file-log pipeline. These records include event type, mode, transport, provider, and size/timing measurements when available, but omit transcript text, audio payloads, turn ids, call ids, and provider item ids.

Console output

Console logs are TTY-aware and formatted for readability:

• Subsystem prefixes (e.g. gateway/channels/whatsapp)
• Level coloring (info/warn/error)
• Optional compact or JSON mode

Console formatting is controlled by logging.consoleStyle.

Gateway WebSocket logs

openclaw gateway also has WebSocket protocol logging for RPC traffic:

• normal mode: only interesting results (errors, parse errors, slow calls)
• --verbose: all request/response traffic
• --ws-log auto|compact|full: pick the verbose rendering style
• --compact: alias for --ws-log compact

Examples:

openclaw gateway
openclaw gateway --verbose --ws-log compact
openclaw gateway --verbose --ws-log full

Configuring logging

All logging configuration lives under logging in ~/.openclaw/openclaw.json.

{
  "logging": {
    "level": "info",
    "file": "/path/to/openclaw.log",
    "consoleLevel": "info",
    "consoleStyle": "pretty",
    "redactPatterns": ["sk-.*"]
  }
}

Log levels

Levels: silent, fatal, error, warn, info, debug, trace.

• logging.level: file logs (JSONL) level (default: info).
• logging.consoleLevel: console verbosity level.

You can override both via the OPENCLAW_LOG_LEVEL environment variable (e.g. OPENCLAW_LOG_LEVEL=debug). The env var takes precedence over the config file, so you can raise verbosity for a single run without editing openclaw.json. You can also pass the global CLI option --log-level <level> (for example, openclaw --log-level debug gateway run), which overrides the environment variable for that command.

--verbose only affects console output and WS log verbosity; it does not change file log levels.

Targeted model transport diagnostics

When debugging provider calls, use targeted environment flags instead of raising all logs to debug:

OPENCLAW_DEBUG_MODEL_TRANSPORT=1 openclaw gateway
OPENCLAW_DEBUG_MODEL_PAYLOAD=tools OPENCLAW_DEBUG_SSE=events openclaw gateway

Available flags:

• OPENCLAW_DEBUG_MODEL_TRANSPORT=1: emit request start, fetch response, SDK headers, first streaming event, stream completion, and transport errors at info level.
• OPENCLAW_DEBUG_MODEL_PAYLOAD=summary: include a bounded request payload summary in model request logs.
• OPENCLAW_DEBUG_MODEL_PAYLOAD=tools: include all model-facing tool names in the payload summary.
• OPENCLAW_DEBUG_MODEL_PAYLOAD=full-redacted: include a redacted, capped JSON payload snapshot. Use only while debugging; secrets are redacted but prompts and message text may still be present.
• OPENCLAW_DEBUG_SSE=events: emit first-event and stream-completion timing.
• OPENCLAW_DEBUG_SSE=peek: also emit the first five redacted SSE event payloads, capped per event.
• OPENCLAW_DEBUG_CODE_MODE=1: emit code-mode model-surface diagnostics, including when native provider tools are hidden because code mode owns the tool surface.

These flags log through normal OpenClaw logging, so openclaw logs --follow and the Control UI Logs tab show them. Without the flags, the same diagnostics remain available at debug level.

[model-fetch] start and response metadata (provider, API, model, status, latency, and request fields such as method, URL, timeout, proxy, and policy) is always emitted at info level regardless of OPENCLAW_DEBUG_MODEL_TRANSPORT, so basic model transport hygiene is visible without debug flags.

Trace correlation

File logs are JSONL. When a log call carries a valid diagnostic trace context, OpenClaw writes the trace fields as top-level JSON keys (traceId, spanId, parentSpanId, traceFlags) so external log processors can correlate the line with OTEL spans and provider traceparent propagation.

Gateway HTTP requests and Gateway WebSocket frames establish an internal request trace scope. Logs and diagnostic events emitted inside that async scope inherit the request trace when they do not pass an explicit trace context. Agent run and model-call traces become children of the active request trace, so local logs, diagnostic snapshots, OTEL spans, and trusted provider traceparent headers can be joined by traceId without logging raw request or model content.

Talk lifecycle log records also flow to diagnostics-otel log export when OpenTelemetry log export is enabled, using the same bounded attributes as file logs. Configure diagnostics.otel.logsExporter to choose OTLP, stdout JSONL, or both sinks.

Model call size and timing

Model-call diagnostics record bounded request/response measurements without capturing raw prompt or response content:

• requestPayloadBytes: UTF-8 byte size of the final model request payload
• responseStreamBytes: UTF-8 byte size of streamed model response chunk payloads. High-frequency text, thinking, and tool-call delta events count only the incremental delta bytes instead of full partial snapshots.
• timeToFirstByteMs: elapsed time before the first streamed response event
• durationMs: total model-call duration

These fields are available to diagnostic snapshots, model-call plugin hooks, and OTEL model-call spans/metrics when diagnostics export is enabled.

Console styles

logging.consoleStyle accepts pretty or json:

• pretty: human-friendly, colored, with timestamps.
• json: JSON per line (for log processors).

A third rendering style, compact (tighter output, best for long sessions), is applied automatically when stdout is not a TTY. It is no longer a settable config value; openclaw doctor --fix maps a stored consoleStyle: "compact" to "pretty".

Redaction

OpenClaw can redact sensitive tokens before they hit console output, file logs, OTLP log records, persisted session transcript text, or Control UI tool event payloads (tool start args, partial/final result payloads, derived exec output, and patch summaries):

• Sensitive-value redaction is always enabled.
• logging.redactPatterns: list of regex strings that replaces the default set for log/transcript output. For Control UI tool payloads, custom patterns apply on top of the built-in defaults, so adding a pattern never weakens redaction of values already caught by the defaults.

File logs and session transcripts stay JSONL, but matching secret values are masked before the line or message is written to disk. Redaction is best-effort: it applies to text-bearing message content and log strings, not every identifier or binary payload field.

The built-in defaults cover common API credentials and payment-credential field names such as card number, CVC/CVV, shared payment token, and payment credential when they appear as JSON fields, URL parameters, CLI flags, or assignments.

OpenClaw also redacts safety-boundary payloads shown to UI clients, support bundles, diagnostics observers, approval prompts, or agent tools. Custom logging.redactPatterns can add project-specific patterns on those surfaces.

Diagnostics and OpenTelemetry

Diagnostics are structured, machine-readable events for model runs and message-flow telemetry (webhooks, queueing, session state). They do not replace logs — they feed metrics, traces, and exporters. Events are emitted in-process by default (set diagnostics.enabled: false to turn them off); exporting them is separate.

Two adjacent surfaces:

• OpenTelemetry export — send metrics, traces, and logs over OTLP/HTTP to any OpenTelemetry-compatible collector or backend (Datadog, Grafana, Honeycomb, New Relic, Tempo, etc.). Full configuration, signal catalog, metric/span names, env vars, and privacy model live on a dedicated page: OpenTelemetry export.
• Diagnostics flags — targeted debug-log flags that route extra logs to logging.file without raising logging.level. Flags are case-insensitive and support wildcards (telegram.*, *). Configure under diagnostics.flags or via the OPENCLAW_DIAGNOSTICS=... env override. Full guide: Diagnostics flags.

For OTLP export to a collector, see OpenTelemetry export.

Troubleshooting tips

• Gateway not reachable? Run openclaw doctor first.
• Logs empty? Check that the Gateway is running and writing to the file path in logging.file.
• Need more detail? Set logging.level to debug or trace and retry.

Related

• OpenTelemetry export — OTLP/HTTP export, metric/span catalog, privacy model
• Diagnostics flags — targeted debug-log flags
• Gateway logging internals — WS log styles, subsystem prefixes, and console capture
• Configuration reference — full diagnostics.* field reference