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ClawDock is a small shell-helper layer for Docker-based OpenClaw installs. It gives you short commands like clawdock-start, clawdock-dashboard, and clawdock-fix-token instead of longer docker compose ... invocations. If you have not set up Docker yet, start with Docker.

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Install

mkdir -p ~/.clawdock && curl -sL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/openclaw/openclaw/main/scripts/clawdock/clawdock-helpers.sh -o ~/.clawdock/clawdock-helpers.sh
echo 'source ~/.clawdock/clawdock-helpers.sh' >> ~/.zshrc && source ~/.zshrc
If you previously installed ClawDock from scripts/shell-helpers/clawdock-helpers.sh, reinstall from the current scripts/clawdock/clawdock-helpers.sh path; the old raw GitHub path was removed. The helpers auto-detect your OpenClaw checkout on first use (checking common paths like ~/openclaw, ~/projects/openclaw) and cache the result in ~/.clawdock/config. Set CLAWDOCK_DIR yourself if your checkout lives elsewhere.

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What you get

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Basic operations

CommandDescription
clawdock-startStart the gateway
clawdock-stopStop the gateway
clawdock-restartRestart the gateway
clawdock-statusCheck container status
clawdock-logsFollow gateway logs

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Container access

CommandDescription
clawdock-shellOpen a shell inside the gateway container
clawdock-cli <command>Run OpenClaw CLI commands in Docker
clawdock-exec <command>Execute an arbitrary command in the container

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Web UI and pairing

CommandDescription
clawdock-dashboardOpen the Control UI URL
clawdock-devicesList pending device pairings
clawdock-approve <id>Approve a pairing request

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Setup and maintenance

CommandDescription
clawdock-fix-tokenWrite the gateway token into the container config
clawdock-updatePull, rebuild, and restart
clawdock-rebuildRebuild the Docker image only
clawdock-cleanRemove containers and volumes

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Utilities

CommandDescription
clawdock-healthRun a gateway health check
clawdock-tokenPrint the gateway token
clawdock-cdJump to the OpenClaw project directory
clawdock-configOpen ~/.openclaw
clawdock-show-configPrint config files with redacted values
clawdock-workspaceOpen the workspace directory
clawdock-helpList all ClawDock commands

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First-time flow

clawdock-start
clawdock-fix-token
clawdock-dashboard
If the browser says pairing is required: 
clawdock-devices
clawdock-approve <request-id>

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Config and secrets

ClawDock reads two separate .env files, matching the split described in Docker:
  • The project .env next to docker-compose.yml: Docker-specific values like image name, ports, and OPENCLAW_GATEWAY_TOKEN. clawdock-token reads the token from here.
  • ~/.openclaw/.env (mounted into the container): env-backed secrets OpenClaw itself manages, alongside openclaw.json and agents/<agentId>/agent/auth-profiles.json.
clawdock-fix-token copies the token from the project .env into the container’s gateway.remote.token and gateway.auth.token config values and restarts the gateway. Use clawdock-show-config to inspect openclaw.json and both .env files quickly; it redacts .env values in its printed output.

Docker

Canonical Docker install for OpenClaw.

Docker VM runtime

Docker-managed VM runtime for hardened isolation.

Updating

Updating the OpenClaw package and managed services.