clawops

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.

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What's new: 2.4 release notes below, and the full history in CHANGELOG.md.

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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.

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What clawops does

• Provisions and tears down OpenClaw infrastructure on AWS, GCP, Azure, and local VMs using the Pulumi Automation API. You do not install Pulumi; clawops installs the CLI it needs into ~/.clawops/.pulumi-cli on first use.
• 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.

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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= 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). You do not need Pulumi. The first cloud deployment installs the CLI clawops drives into ~/.clawops/.pulumi-cli and says so while it does.

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

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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 --ssh-cidr auto --out /tmp/plan.json clawops apply /tmp/plan.json

--ssh-cidr auto allows SSH from this machine's public IP, resolved while the plan is generated and written into it. Without it the plan allows no ingress at all and nothing, including clawops, will be able to connect.

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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": "npx", "args": ["-y", "@clawops/cli", "mcp", "serve", "--read-only"] } } }

That form needs nothing on $PATH and is what a directory or an installer will copy. If you would rather point at the binary you already have, use its absolute path — the output of which clawops — with the same arguments:

{

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

Either way, pass the arguments. mcp serve is what speaks the protocol, and an explicit config is one that still reads clearly a year later. clawops does not strand a client that omits them: run with no command at all and a pipe on stdin — how every MCP client starts a server — and it starts mcp serve, saying so on stderr. Typed at a terminal, clawops still prints help.

Pass cloud credentials in `env`. A client starts the server with the environment its config gives it, not your shell's, so an AWS_PROFILE exported in a terminal does not reach it, and every tool that reads a stack fails with "Could not read the state of stack". Name the profile, or the variables your state backend needs, in the server's env block:

{

"mcpServers": { "clawops": { "command": "npx", "args": ["-y", "@clawops/cli", "mcp", "serve"], "env": { "AWS_PROFILE": "my-profile" } } } }

It holds a profile name, not a key: the credentials themselves stay where the cloud CLI keeps them (R6).

Config file locations:

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/.

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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

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Commands

| `f