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This is the full reference for openclaw onboard. For a high-level overview, see Onboarding (CLI). For step-by-step behavior and outputs, see CLI setup reference.

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Flow details (local mode)

1

Reset (optional)

  • --reset resets state before setup runs; without it, re-running onboarding keeps existing config and reuses it as defaults.
  • --reset-scope controls what --reset removes: config (config file only), config+creds+sessions (default), or full (also removes the workspace).
  • If the config file is invalid, onboarding stops and tells you to run openclaw doctor first, then re-run setup.
  • Reset moves state to Trash (never deletes directly).
2

Risk acknowledgement

  • First run (or any run before wizard.securityAcknowledgedAt is set) asks you to confirm you understand that agents are powerful and full system access is risky.
  • --non-interactive requires --accept-risk explicitly; without it, onboarding exits with an error instead of prompting.
  • Interactive runs get a confirm prompt instead of the flag; declining cancels setup.
3

Model/Auth

  • Anthropic API key: uses ANTHROPIC_API_KEY if present or prompts for a key, then saves it for daemon use.
  • Anthropic Claude CLI: preferred local path when a Claude CLI sign-in already exists; OpenClaw still supports Anthropic setup-token auth as an alternative.
  • OpenAI Code (Codex) subscription (OAuth): browser flow; paste the code#state.
    • Sets agents.defaults.model to openai/gpt-5.5 through the Codex runtime when model is unset or already OpenAI-family.
  • OpenAI Code (Codex) subscription (device pairing): browser pairing flow with a short-lived device code.
    • Sets agents.defaults.model to openai/gpt-5.5 through the Codex runtime when model is unset or already OpenAI-family.
  • OpenAI API key: uses OPENAI_API_KEY if present or prompts for a key, then stores it in auth profiles.
    • Sets agents.defaults.model to openai/gpt-5.5 when model is unset, openai/*, or legacy Codex model refs.
  • xAI OAuth: device-code browser sign-in with no localhost callback required, so it works over SSH/Docker/VPS too (--auth-choice xai-oauth).
  • xAI API key: prompts for XAI_API_KEY (--auth-choice xai-api-key).
  • --auth-choice xai-device-code still works as a manual-only compatibility alias for the same xAI OAuth device-code flow; use xai-oauth for new scripts.
  • OpenCode: prompts for OPENCODE_API_KEY (or OPENCODE_ZEN_API_KEY, get it at https://opencode.ai/auth) and lets you pick the Zen or Go catalog.
  • Ollama: offers Cloud + Local, Cloud only, or Local only first. Cloud only prompts for OLLAMA_API_KEY and uses https://ollama.com; the host-backed modes prompt for the Ollama base URL (default http://127.0.0.1:11434), discover available models, and auto-pull the selected local model when needed; Cloud + Local also checks whether that Ollama host is signed in for cloud access.
  • More detail: Ollama
  • API key: stores the key for you.
  • Vercel AI Gateway (multi-model proxy): prompts for AI_GATEWAY_API_KEY.
  • More detail: Vercel AI Gateway
  • Cloudflare AI Gateway: prompts for Account ID, Gateway ID, and CLOUDFLARE_AI_GATEWAY_API_KEY.
  • More detail: Cloudflare AI Gateway
  • MiniMax: config is auto-written; hosted default is MiniMax-M3. API-key setup uses minimax/..., and OAuth setup uses minimax-portal/....
  • More detail: MiniMax
  • StepFun: config is auto-written for StepFun standard or Step Plan on China or global endpoints.
  • Standard currently defaults to step-3.5-flash; Step Plan also includes step-3.5-flash-2603.
  • More detail: StepFun
  • Synthetic (Anthropic-compatible): prompts for SYNTHETIC_API_KEY.
  • More detail: Synthetic
  • Moonshot (Kimi K2): config is auto-written.
  • Kimi Coding: config is auto-written.
  • More detail: Moonshot AI (Kimi + Kimi Coding)
  • Custom Provider: works with OpenAI-compatible, OpenAI Responses-compatible, or Anthropic-compatible endpoints. Non-interactive flags: --auth-choice custom-api-key, --custom-base-url, --custom-model-id, --custom-api-key (optional; falls back to CUSTOM_API_KEY), --custom-provider-id (optional; auto-derived from the base URL), --custom-compatibility openai|openai-responses|anthropic (default openai), --custom-image-input / --custom-text-input (override inferred vision-model detection).
  • Skip: no auth configured yet.
  • Pick a default model from detected options (or enter provider/model manually). For best quality and lower prompt-injection risk, choose the strongest latest-generation model available in your provider stack.
  • Onboarding runs a model check and warns if the configured model is unknown or missing auth.
  • API key storage mode defaults to plaintext auth-profile values. Use --secret-input-mode ref to store env-backed refs instead (for example keyRef: { source: "env", provider: "default", id: "OPENAI_API_KEY" }); the referenced env var must already be set, or onboarding fails fast.
  • Auth profiles live in ~/.openclaw/agents/<agentId>/agent/auth-profiles.json (API keys + OAuth). ~/.openclaw/credentials/oauth.json is legacy import-only.
  • More detail: OAuth
Headless/server tip: complete OAuth on a machine with a browser, then copy that agent’s auth-profiles.json (for example ~/.openclaw/agents/<agentId>/agent/auth-profiles.json, or the matching $OPENCLAW_STATE_DIR/... path) to the gateway host. credentials/oauth.json is only a legacy import source.
4

Workspace

  • Default ~/.openclaw/workspace (configurable).
  • Seeds the workspace files needed for the agent bootstrap ritual.
  • Full workspace layout + backup guide: Agent workspace
5

Gateway

  • Port (default 18789), bind, auth mode, tailscale exposure.
  • Auth recommendation: keep Token even for loopback so local WS clients must authenticate.
  • In token mode, interactive setup offers:
    • Generate/store plaintext token (default)
    • Use SecretRef (opt-in)
    • Quickstart reuses existing gateway.auth.token SecretRefs across env, file, and exec providers for onboarding probe/dashboard bootstrap.
    • If that SecretRef is configured but cannot be resolved, onboarding fails early with a clear fix message instead of silently degrading runtime auth.
  • In password mode, interactive setup also supports plaintext or SecretRef storage.
  • Non-interactive token SecretRef path: --gateway-token-ref-env <ENV_VAR>.
    • Requires a non-empty env var in the onboarding process environment.
    • Cannot be combined with --gateway-token.
  • Disable auth only if you fully trust every local process.
  • Non-loopback binds still require auth.
6

Channels

  • WhatsApp: optional QR login.
  • Telegram: bot token.
  • Discord: bot token.
  • Google Chat: service account JSON + webhook audience.
  • Mattermost (plugin): bot token + base URL.
  • Signal (plugin): optional signal-cli install + account config.
  • iMessage: imsg CLI path + Messages DB access; use an SSH wrapper when the Gateway runs off-Mac.
  • Discord, Feishu, Microsoft Teams, QQ Bot, Slack, and other channels ship as plugins onboarding can install for you. Full catalog: Channels.
  • DM security: default is pairing. First DM sends a code; approve via openclaw pairing approve <channel> <code> or use allowlists.
7

Web search

  • Pick a supported provider such as Brave, Codex (Hosted Search), DuckDuckGo, Exa, Firecrawl, Gemini, Grok, Kimi, MiniMax Search, Ollama Web Search, Parallel, Perplexity, SearXNG, or Tavily (or skip).
  • API-backed providers can use env vars or existing config for quick setup; key-free providers use their provider-specific prerequisites instead.
  • Skip with --skip-search.
  • Configure later: openclaw configure --section web.
8

Daemon install

  • macOS: LaunchAgent
    • Requires a logged-in user session; for headless, use a custom LaunchDaemon (not shipped).
  • Linux (and Windows via WSL2): systemd user unit
    • Onboarding attempts to enable lingering via loginctl enable-linger <user> so the Gateway stays up after logout.
    • May prompt for sudo (writes /var/lib/systemd/linger); it tries without sudo first.
  • Native Windows: Scheduled Task first; if task creation is denied, OpenClaw falls back to a per-user Startup-folder login item and starts the Gateway immediately.
  • Runtime selection: Node (recommended; required for WhatsApp/Telegram - Bun can corrupt memory on reconnect). Only Node is offered interactively; --daemon-runtime bun is CLI-only.
  • If token auth requires a token and gateway.auth.token is SecretRef-managed, daemon install validates it but does not persist resolved plaintext token values into supervisor service environment metadata.
  • If token auth requires a token and the configured token SecretRef is unresolved, daemon install is blocked with actionable guidance.
  • If both gateway.auth.token and gateway.auth.password are configured and gateway.auth.mode is unset, daemon install is blocked until mode is set explicitly.
9

Health check

  • Starts the Gateway (if needed) and runs openclaw health.
  • Tip: openclaw status --deep adds the live gateway health probe to status output, including channel probes when supported (requires a reachable gateway).
10

Skills (recommended)

  • Reads the available skills and checks requirements.
  • Lets you choose a node manager: npm / pnpm / bun.
  • Auto-installs optional dependencies for trusted bundled skills (some use Homebrew on macOS).
  • Skips skills whose Homebrew, uv, or Go installer prerequisite is unavailable, groups them with manual setup guidance, and points you at openclaw doctor once the prerequisite is installed.
11

Finish

  • Summary + next steps, including the How do you want to hatch your agent? prompt for Terminal, Browser, or later.
If no GUI is detected, onboarding prints SSH port-forward instructions for the Control UI instead of opening a browser. If the Control UI assets are missing, onboarding attempts to build them; fallback is pnpm ui:build (auto-installs UI deps).

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Non-interactive mode

Use --non-interactive --accept-risk to automate or script onboarding (the flag is the required risk acknowledgement; onboarding exits with an error without it): 
openclaw onboard --non-interactive --accept-risk \
  --mode local \
  --auth-choice apiKey \
  --anthropic-api-key "$ANTHROPIC_API_KEY" \
  --gateway-port 18789 \
  --gateway-bind loopback \
  --install-daemon \
  --daemon-runtime node \
  --skip-skills
Add --json for a machine-readable summary. Gateway token SecretRef in non-interactive mode: 
export OPENCLAW_GATEWAY_TOKEN="your-token"
openclaw onboard --non-interactive --accept-risk \
  --mode local \
  --auth-choice skip \
  --gateway-auth token \
  --gateway-token-ref-env OPENCLAW_GATEWAY_TOKEN
--gateway-token and --gateway-token-ref-env are mutually exclusive.
--json does not imply non-interactive mode. Use --non-interactive --accept-risk (and --workspace) for scripts.
Provider-specific command examples live in CLI Automation. Use this reference page for flag semantics and step ordering.

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Add agent (non-interactive)

openclaw agents add work \
  --workspace ~/.openclaw/workspace-work \
  --model openai/gpt-5.5 \
  --bind whatsapp:biz \
  --non-interactive \
  --json
main is a reserved agent id and cannot be used for openclaw agents add.

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Gateway wizard RPC

The Gateway exposes the onboarding flow over RPC (wizard.start, wizard.next, wizard.cancel, wizard.status). Clients (macOS app, Control UI) can render steps without re-implementing onboarding logic.

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Signal setup (signal-cli)

Onboarding detects whether signal-cli is on PATH and, if missing, offers to install it:
  • Linux x86-64: downloads the official native GraalVM build from the signal-cli GitHub releases and stores it under ~/.openclaw/tools/signal-cli/<version>/.
  • macOS and other architectures: installs via Homebrew instead.
  • Native Windows: not supported yet; run onboarding inside WSL2 to get the Linux install path.
  • Writes channels.signal.cliPath to your config either way.

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What the wizard writes

Typical fields in ~/.openclaw/openclaw.json:
  • agents.defaults.workspace
  • agents.defaults.skipBootstrap when --skip-bootstrap is passed
  • agents.defaults.model / models.providers (if Minimax chosen)
  • tools.profile (local onboarding defaults to "coding" when unset; existing explicit values are preserved)
  • gateway.* (mode, bind, auth, tailscale)
  • session.dmScope (local onboarding defaults this to "per-channel-peer" when unset; existing explicit values are preserved. Details: CLI Setup Reference)
  • channels.telegram.botToken, channels.discord.token, channels.matrix.*, channels.signal.*, channels.imessage.*
  • Channel DM allowlists when you opt in during the channel prompts. Discord, Matrix, Microsoft Teams, and Slack resolve names to IDs when possible; other channels take IDs directly (for example numeric Telegram sender IDs or WhatsApp phone numbers).
  • skills.install.nodeManager
    • setup --node-manager accepts npm, pnpm, or bun.
    • Manual config can still use yarn by setting skills.install.nodeManager directly.
  • wizard.lastRunAt
  • wizard.lastRunVersion
  • wizard.lastRunCommit
  • wizard.lastRunCommand
  • wizard.lastRunMode
  • wizard.securityAcknowledgedAt
openclaw agents add writes agents.list[] and optional bindings. WhatsApp credentials go under ~/.openclaw/credentials/whatsapp/<accountId>/. Sessions are stored under ~/.openclaw/agents/<agentId>/sessions/. Some channels are delivered as plugins. When you pick one during setup, onboarding will prompt to install it (npm or a local path) before it can be configured.