openclaw-openclaw/docs/install/clawdock.md

summary, read_when, title

summary	read_when	title
ClawDock shell helpers for Docker-based OpenClaw installs	You run OpenClaw with Docker often and want shorter day-to-day commands You want a helper layer for dashboard, logs, token setup, and pairing flows	ClawDock

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.

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.

What you get

Basic operations

Command	Description
clawdock-start	Start the gateway
clawdock-stop	Stop the gateway
clawdock-restart	Restart the gateway
clawdock-status	Check container status
clawdock-logs	Follow gateway logs

Container access

Command	Description
clawdock-shell	Open 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

Web UI and pairing

Command	Description
clawdock-dashboard	Open the Control UI URL
clawdock-devices	List pending device pairings
clawdock-approve <id>	Approve a pairing request

Setup and maintenance

Command	Description
clawdock-fix-token	Write the gateway token into the container config
clawdock-update	Pull, rebuild, and restart
clawdock-rebuild	Rebuild the Docker image only
clawdock-clean	Remove containers and volumes

Utilities

Command	Description
clawdock-health	Run a gateway health check
clawdock-token	Print the gateway token
clawdock-cd	Jump to the OpenClaw project directory
clawdock-config	Open ~/.openclaw
clawdock-show-config	Print config files with redacted values
clawdock-workspace	Open the workspace directory
clawdock-help	List all ClawDock commands

First-time flow

clawdock-start
clawdock-fix-token
clawdock-dashboard

If the browser says pairing is required:

clawdock-devices
clawdock-approve <request-id>

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.

Related

Canonical Docker install for OpenClaw. Docker-managed VM runtime for hardened isolation. Updating the OpenClaw package and managed services.