openclaw-openclaw/docs/cli/update.md

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summary	read_when	title
CLI reference for `openclaw update` (safe-ish source update + gateway auto-restart)	You want to update a source checkout safely You are debugging `openclaw update` output or options You need to understand `--update` shorthand behavior	Update

openclaw update

Update OpenClaw and switch between stable/extended-stable/beta/dev channels.

If you installed via npm/pnpm/bun (global install, no git metadata), updates go through the package-manager flow described in Updating.

Usage

openclaw update
openclaw update status
openclaw update repair
openclaw update wizard
openclaw update --channel extended-stable
openclaw update --channel beta
openclaw update --channel dev
openclaw update --tag beta
openclaw update --tag main
openclaw update --dry-run
openclaw update --no-restart
openclaw update --yes
openclaw update --acknowledge-clawhub-risk
openclaw update --json
openclaw --update

openclaw --update rewrites to openclaw update (useful for shells and launcher scripts).

Options

Flag	Description
--no-restart	Skip restarting the Gateway service after a successful update. Package-manager updates that do restart verify the restarted service reports the expected version before the command succeeds.
--channel <stable|extended-stable|beta|dev>	Set the update channel and persist it after core update success. Extended-stable is package-only.
--tag <dist-tag|version|spec>	Override the package target for this update only. It cannot be combined with an effective extended-stable channel, whose verified exact target is mandatory. For other package installs, main maps to github:openclaw/openclaw#main; GitHub/git source specs are packed into a temporary tarball before the staged global npm install.
--dry-run	Preview planned actions (channel/tag/target/restart flow) without writing config, installing, syncing plugins, or restarting.
--json	Print machine-readable UpdateRunResult JSON. Includes postUpdate.plugins.warnings when a managed plugin needs repair, beta-channel plugin fallback details, and postUpdate.plugins.integrityDrifts when npm plugin artifact drift is detected during post-update sync.
--timeout <seconds>	Per-step timeout. Default 1800.
--yes	Skip confirmation prompts (for example downgrade confirmation).
--acknowledge-clawhub-risk	Allow post-update plugin sync to continue past community ClawHub trust warnings without an interactive prompt. Without it, risky community releases are skipped and left unchanged when OpenClaw cannot prompt. Official ClawHub packages and bundled plugin sources bypass this prompt.

There is no --verbose flag. Use --dry-run to preview planned actions, --json for machine-readable results, and openclaw update status --json for channel/availability only. Gateway console verbosity (--verbose) and file log level (logging.level: "debug"/"trace") are independent knobs; see Gateway logging.

In Nix mode (`OPENCLAW_NIX_MODE=1`), mutating `openclaw update` runs are disabled. Update the Nix source or flake input for this install instead; for nix-openclaw, use the agent-first [Quick Start](https://github.com/openclaw/nix-openclaw#quick-start). `openclaw update status` and `openclaw update --dry-run` remain read-only. Downgrades require confirmation because older versions can break configuration.

update status

Show the active update channel, git tag/branch/SHA (source checkouts only), and update availability.

openclaw update status
openclaw update status --json
openclaw update status --timeout 10

Flag	Default	Description
--json	false	Print machine-readable status JSON.
--timeout <seconds>	3	Timeout for checks.

For extended-stable package installs, status performs the same public selector and exact-package verification as foreground update. It can report ahead of extended-stable when the installed version is newer. JSON failures include registry.reason (selector_missing, selector_query_failed, exact_package_mismatch, or unsupported_git_channel).

update repair

Rerun update finalization after the core package already changed but later repair work did not finish cleanly. This is the supported recovery path when openclaw update installed the new core package but post-core plugin sync, managed npm plugin metadata, registry refresh, or doctor repair did not converge.

openclaw update repair
openclaw update repair --channel beta
openclaw update repair --acknowledge-clawhub-risk
openclaw update repair --json

Flag	Description
--channel <stable|extended-stable|beta|dev>	Persist the core update channel before repair. For extended-stable, eligible official npm plugins that follow bare/default or latest intent target the exact installed core version. Extended-stable repair is rejected on Git checkouts without changing config.
--json	Print machine-readable finalization JSON.
--timeout <seconds>	Timeout for repair steps. Default 1800.
--yes	Skip confirmation prompts.
--acknowledge-clawhub-risk	Same behavior as on openclaw update.
--no-restart	Accepted for parity; repair never restarts the Gateway.

update repair runs openclaw doctor --fix, reloads the repaired config and install records, syncs tracked plugins for the active update channel, updates managed npm plugin installs, repairs missing configured plugin payloads, refreshes the plugin registry, and writes converged install-record metadata. It does not install a new core package and does not restart the Gateway.

update wizard

Interactive flow to pick an update channel and confirm whether to restart the Gateway afterward (defaults to restart). Selecting dev without a git checkout offers to create one.

Flag	Default	Description
--timeout <seconds>	1800	Timeout for each update step.

What it does

Switching channels explicitly (--channel ...) also keeps the install method aligned:

• dev -> ensures a git checkout (default ~/openclaw, or $OPENCLAW_HOME/openclaw when OPENCLAW_HOME is set; override with OPENCLAW_GIT_DIR), updates it, and installs the global CLI from that checkout.
• stable -> installs from npm using latest.
• extended-stable -> resolves the public npm extended-stable selector, verifies the exact selected package, and installs that exact version. It does not fall back to another selector and is rejected for Git checkouts.
• beta -> prefers npm dist-tag beta, falling back to latest when beta is missing or older than the current stable release.

Restart handoff

The Gateway core auto-updater (when enabled via config) launches the CLI update path outside the live Gateway request handler. Control-plane update.run package-manager updates and supervised git-checkout updates use the same managed-service handoff instead of replacing the package tree or rebuilding dist/ inside the live Gateway process: the Gateway starts a detached helper and exits, and that helper runs openclaw update --yes --json from outside the Gateway process tree. If the handoff is unavailable, update.run returns a structured response with the safe shell command to run manually.

Extended-stable is deliberately excluded from startup checks and background auto-update scheduling. Explicit foreground updates, bare foreground updates with stored update.channel: "extended-stable", on-demand status, and managed Gateway handoff remain supported.

When a local managed Gateway service is installed and restart is enabled, package-manager and git-checkout updates stop the running service before replacing the package tree or mutating the checkout/build output. The updater then refreshes service metadata, restarts the service, and verifies the restarted Gateway before reporting Gateway: restarted and verified.. Package-manager updates additionally verify the restarted Gateway reports the expected package version; git-checkout updates verify gateway health and service readiness after the rebuild.

On macOS, the post-update check also verifies the LaunchAgent is loaded/running for the active profile and the configured loopback port is healthy. If the plist is installed but launchd is not supervising it, OpenClaw re-bootstraps the LaunchAgent automatically and reruns the health/version/ channel readiness checks (a fresh bootstrap loads the RunAtLoad job directly, so recovery does not immediately kickstart -k the newly spawned Gateway). If the Gateway still does not become healthy, the command exits non-zero and prints the restart log path plus restart, reinstall, and package rollback instructions.

If restart cannot run, the command prints Gateway: restart skipped (...) or Gateway: restart failed: ... with a manual openclaw gateway restart hint. With --no-restart, package replacement or git rebuild still runs, but the managed service is not stopped or restarted, so the running Gateway keeps old code until you restart it manually.

Control-plane response shape

When update.run runs through the Gateway control plane on a package-manager install or supervised git checkout, the handler reports handoff initiation separately from the CLI update that continues after the Gateway exits:

• ok: true, result.status: "skipped", result.reason: "managed-service-handoff-started", and handoff.status: "started": the Gateway created the managed-service handoff and scheduled its own restart so the detached helper can run openclaw update --yes --json outside the live service process.
• ok: false, result.reason: "managed-service-handoff-unavailable", and handoff.status: "unavailable": OpenClaw could not find a supervising service boundary and durable service identity for a safe handoff (for example, systemd handoff requires the OPENCLAW_SYSTEMD_UNIT unit identity, not just ambient systemd process markers). The response includes handoff.command, the shell command to run from outside the Gateway.
• ok: false, result.reason: "managed-service-handoff-failed": the Gateway tried to create the handoff but could not spawn the detached helper.

The sentinel payload is written before the Gateway exits, and the CLI handoff updates that same restart sentinel after the managed-service restart health checks complete. During the handoff, the sentinel can carry stats.reason: "restart-health-pending" with no success continuation; the restarted Gateway polls it and fires the continuation only after the CLI has verified service health and rewritten the sentinel with the final ok result. openclaw status and openclaw status --all show an Update restart row while that sentinel is pending or failed, and update.status refreshes and returns the latest sentinel.

Git checkout flow

Channel selection

• stable: checkout the latest non-beta tag, then build and doctor.
• beta: prefer the latest -beta tag, falling back to the latest stable tag when beta is missing or older.
• dev: checkout main, then fetch and rebase.
• extended-stable: unsupported for Git checkouts; no checkout mutation occurs.

Update steps

Requires no uncommitted changes. Switches to the selected channel (tag or branch). Dev only. Runs the TypeScript build in a temp worktree. If the tip fails, walks back up to 10 commits to find the newest buildable commit. Set `OPENCLAW_UPDATE_PREFLIGHT_LINT=1` to also run lint during this preflight; lint runs in constrained serial mode because user update hosts are often smaller than CI runners. Rebases onto the selected commit (dev only). Uses the repo package manager. For pnpm checkouts, the updater bootstraps `pnpm` on demand (via `corepack` first, then a temporary `npm install pnpm@11` fallback) instead of running `npm run build` inside a pnpm workspace. If pnpm bootstrap still fails, the updater stops early with a package-manager-specific error instead of trying `npm run build` in the checkout. Builds the gateway and the Control UI. `openclaw doctor` runs as the final safe-update check. Syncs plugins to the active channel. Dev uses bundled plugins; stable and beta use npm. Updates tracked plugin installs.

Plugin sync details

On the beta channel, tracked npm and ClawHub plugin installs that follow the default/latest line try a plugin @beta release first. If the plugin has no beta release, OpenClaw falls back to the recorded default/latest spec and reports a warning. For npm plugins, OpenClaw also falls back when the beta package exists but fails install validation. These fallback warnings do not fail the core update. Exact versions and explicit tags are never rewritten.

If an exact pinned npm plugin update resolves to an artifact whose integrity differs from the stored install record, `openclaw update` aborts that plugin artifact update instead of installing it. Reinstall or update the plugin explicitly only after verifying you trust the new artifact. Post-update plugin sync failures that are scoped to a managed plugin and that the sync path can route around (for example an unreachable npm registry for a non-essential plugin) are reported as warnings after the core update succeeds. The JSON result keeps top-level update `status: "ok"` and reports `postUpdate.plugins.status: "warning"` with `openclaw update repair` and `openclaw plugins inspect --runtime --json` guidance. Unexpected updater or sync exceptions still fail the update result. Fix the plugin install or update error, then rerun `openclaw update repair`.

After the per-plugin sync step, openclaw update runs a mandatory post-core convergence pass before the gateway restarts: it repairs missing configured plugin payloads, validates each active tracked install record on disk, and statically verifies its package.json is parseable (and any explicitly declared main exists). Failures from this pass, and an invalid config snapshot, return postUpdate.plugins.status: "error" and flip the top-level update status to "error", so openclaw update exits non-zero and the gateway is not restarted with an unverified plugin set. The error includes structured postUpdate.plugins.warnings[].guidance lines pointing at openclaw update repair and openclaw plugins inspect <id> --runtime --json. Disabled plugin entries and records that are not trusted-source-linked official sync targets are skipped here (mirroring the skipDisabledPlugins policy used by the missing-payload check), so a stale disabled plugin record cannot block an otherwise valid update.

When the updated Gateway starts, plugin loading is verify-only: startup does not run package managers or mutate dependency trees. Package-manager update.run restarts are handed to the CLI managed-service path, so the package swap happens outside the old Gateway process and the service health checks decide whether the update can be reported as complete.

After an extended-stable core update succeeds, post-core plugin integrity and convergence target eligible official npm plugins at the exact installed core version. For default/latest intent, OpenClaw does not query plugin @extended-stable or fall back to npm latest; it derives the package version from the installed core. Explicit version pins, explicit non-latest tags, third-party packages, and non-npm sources keep their existing intent.

For package-manager installs, openclaw update resolves the target package version before invoking the package manager. npm global installs use a staged install: OpenClaw installs the new package into a temporary npm prefix, verifies the packaged dist inventory there, then swaps that clean package tree into the real global prefix. If verification fails, post-update doctor, plugin sync, and restart work do not run from the suspect tree. Even when the installed version already matches the target, the command refreshes the global package install, then runs plugin sync, a core-command completion refresh, and restart work. This keeps packaged sidecars and channel-owned plugin records aligned with the installed OpenClaw build, while leaving full plugin-command completion rebuilds to explicit openclaw completion --write-state runs.

Related

• openclaw doctor (offers to run update first on git checkouts)
• Development channels
• Updating
• CLI reference