openclaw-openclaw/docs/gateway/bridge-protocol.md

summary, read_when, title

summary	read_when	title
Historical bridge protocol (legacy nodes): TCP JSONL, pairing, scoped RPC	Investigating old node client code or archived pairing logs Auditing what the legacy node surface used to expose	Bridge protocol

The TCP bridge has been **removed**. Current OpenClaw builds do not ship the bridge listener, and `bridge.*` config keys are no longer in the schema. This page is historical reference only. Use the [Gateway protocol](/gateway/protocol) for all node/operator clients.

Why it existed

• Security boundary: exposed a small allowlist instead of the full gateway API surface.
• Pairing + node identity: node admission was owned by the gateway and tied to a per-node token.
• Discovery UX: nodes could discover gateways via Bonjour on LAN, or connect directly over a tailnet.
• Loopback WS: the full WS control plane stayed local unless tunneled via SSH.

Transport

• TCP, one JSON object per line (JSONL).
• Optional TLS (bridge.tls.enabled: true).
• Default listener port was 18790.

When TLS was enabled, discovery TXT records included bridgeTls=1 plus bridgeTlsSha256 as a non-secret hint. Bonjour/mDNS TXT records are unauthenticated; clients could not treat the advertised fingerprint as an authoritative pin without other out-of-band verification.

Handshake and pairing

1. Client sends hello with node metadata plus token (if already paired).
2. If not paired, gateway replies error (NOT_PAIRED / UNAUTHORIZED).
3. Client sends pair-request.
4. Gateway waits for approval, then sends pair-ok and hello-ok.

hello-ok used to return serverName; hosted plugin surfaces are now advertised through pluginSurfaceUrls on the current Gateway protocol (Canvas/A2UI uses pluginSurfaceUrls.canvas).

Frames

Client to gateway:

• req / res: scoped gateway RPC (chat, sessions, config, health, voicewake, skills.bins).
• event: node signals (voice transcript, agent request, chat subscribe, exec lifecycle).

Gateway to client:

• invoke / invoke-res: node commands (canvas.*, camera.*, screen.record, location.get, sms.send).
• event: chat updates for subscribed sessions.
• ping / pong: keepalive.

Allowlist enforcement lived in src/gateway/server-bridge.ts (removed).

Exec lifecycle events

Nodes emitted exec.finished to surface completed system.run activity, mapped to system events by the gateway (legacy nodes could also emit exec.started). exec.denied marked a denied system.run attempt as a terminal denial without enqueuing a system event or waking agent work.

Payload fields (all optional unless noted):

Field	Notes
sessionKey	Required. Agent session for event correlation and, for exec.finished, system event delivery.
runId	Unique exec id for grouping.
command	Raw or formatted command string.
exitCode, timedOut, output	Completion details (finished only).
reason	Denial reason (denied only).

Historical tailnet usage

• Bind the bridge to a tailnet IP: bridge.bind: "tailnet" in ~/.openclaw/openclaw.json (historical only; bridge.* is no longer valid config).
• Clients connected via MagicDNS name or tailnet IP.
• Bonjour does not cross networks; wide-area DNS-SD or a manual host/port was required otherwise.

Versioning

The bridge was implicit v1, with no min/max negotiation. Current node/operator clients use the WebSocket Gateway protocol, which does negotiate a protocol version range.

Related

• Gateway protocol
• Nodes