OpenClaw Guardian - Setup & Configuration Reference

Environment Variables

All variables are optional with sensible defaults:

Variable	Default	Description
`GUARDIAN_WORKSPACE`	`$HOME/.openclaw/workspace`	Path to workspace git repo
`GUARDIAN_LOG`	`/tmp/openclaw-guardian.log`	Log file path
`GUARDIAN_CHECK_INTERVAL`	`30`	Health check interval in seconds
`GUARDIAN_MAX_REPAIR`	`3`	Max doctor --fix attempts before rollback
`GUARDIAN_COOLDOWN`	`300`	Cooldown period (seconds) after all repairs fail
`DISCORD_WEBHOOK_URL`	(unset)	Discord webhook URL for alerts (optional)
`OPENCLAW_CMD`	`openclaw`	OpenClaw CLI command

Deployment Patterns

Pattern A: nohup (container / no systemd)

Used when systemd user sessions are unavailable (e.g., Docker containers).

nohup ~/.openclaw/guardian.sh >> /tmp/openclaw-guardian.log 2>&1 &

Integrate into start-gateway.sh so it auto-starts on container restart:

pkill -f "guardian.sh" 2>/dev/null || true
nohup /home/ubuntu/.openclaw/guardian.sh >> /tmp/openclaw-guardian.log 2>&1 &

Pattern B: systemd user service (Linux desktop / VPS)

Create ~/.config/systemd/user/openclaw-guardian.service:

[Unit]
Description=OpenClaw Guardian

[Service]
ExecStart=/path/to/guardian.sh
Restart=always

[Install]
WantedBy=default.target

Enable:

systemctl --user daemon-reload
systemctl --user enable --now openclaw-guardian.service

Git Initialization (Required for Rollback)

Guardian's rollback feature requires a git repo in the workspace:

cd ~/.openclaw/workspace
git config --global user.email "guardian@example.com"
git config --global user.name "Guardian"
git init && git add -A && git commit -m "initial"

Without git, Guardian still monitors and runs doctor --fix — rollback is simply skipped.

How Repair Works

Gateway down detected
        │
        ▼
  doctor --fix  ──→ success? ──→ Done ✅
  (up to N times)
        │ all failed
        ▼
   git rollback  ──→ success? ──→ Done ✅
        │ failed
        ▼
  cooldown period
        │
        ▼
  resume monitoring

Daily Backup

Guardian creates a daily git snapshot automatically:

Commit message: daily-backup: auto snapshot YYYY-MM-DD
Tracked in /tmp/guardian-last-backup
These commits are excluded from rollback targets

Coexistence with gw-watchdog

Guardian is designed to complement, not replace, gw-watchdog.sh:

	gw-watchdog	guardian
Check interval	15s	30s
Action	Fast restart	doctor --fix → rollback
Git rollback	No	Yes
Discord alerts	No	Yes
Daily backup	No	Yes

Run both for layered resilience.

Viewing Logs

tail -f /tmp/openclaw-guardian.log

Checking Status

pgrep -a -f "guardian.sh"

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