Gateway protocol system and channel methods

RPC method families for gateway status and identity, models and usage, channels and login, plugin management, messaging and logs, and the operator terminal.

System and identity

• health returns the cached or freshly checked gateway health snapshot.
• diagnostics.stability returns the recent bounded diagnostic stability recorder: event names, counts, byte sizes, memory readings, queue/session state, channel/plugin names, session ids. No chat text, webhook bodies, tool outputs, raw request/response bodies, tokens, cookies, or secrets. Requires operator.read.
• status returns the /status-style gateway summary; sensitive fields only for admin-scoped operator clients.
• gateway.identity.get returns the gateway device identity used by relay and pairing flows.
• system-presence returns the current presence snapshot for connected operator/node devices.
• system-event appends a system event and can update/broadcast presence context.
• last-heartbeat returns the latest persisted heartbeat event.
• set-heartbeats toggles heartbeat processing on the gateway.
• gateway.restart.preflight is a deprecated, read-only compatibility preview of restart-specific active work. It does not close admission, create a suspension lease, or provide the atomic full-work fence of gateway.suspend.prepare; new restart flows should call gateway.restart.request.
• gateway.suspend.prepare creates a short cooperative-suspension lease only when tracked Gateway work is idle. While prepared, authenticated WebSocket connects remain available, but only gateway.suspend.* and an exact targeted non-safe gateway.restart.request may run; safe and untargeted restarts remain fenced. gateway.suspend.status checks the lease, and gateway.suspend.resume releases it after thaw or an aborted host operation.

Models and usage

• models.list returns the runtime-allowed model catalog. See models.list views.
• usage.status returns provider usage windows/remaining quota summaries. Clients advertising usage-refreshing receive an immediate refreshing: true placeholder on a cold cache and must refetch on a bounded schedule; other callers block for the cold provider read.
• usage.cost returns aggregated cost usage summaries for a date range. Pass agentId for one agent, or agentScope: "all" to aggregate configured agents.
• doctor.memory.status returns provider health for a native memory provider, or vector-memory / cached embedding readiness for a legacy provider. Pass { "probe": true } or { "deep": true } only for an explicit legacy embedding provider ping. Pass { "agentId": "agent-id" } to scope Dreaming store stats to one agent workspace; omitting it aggregates configured Dreaming workspaces.
• doctor.memory.dreamDiary, doctor.memory.backfillDreamDiary, doctor.memory.resetDreamDiary, doctor.memory.resetGroundedShortTerm, doctor.memory.repairDreamingArtifacts, and doctor.memory.dedupeDreamDiary accept optional { "agentId": "agent-id" }; omitted, they operate on the configured default agent workspace.
• sessions.usage returns per-session usage summaries. Pass agentId for one agent, or agentScope: "all" to list configured agents together. Both usage methods accept mode: "specific" with an IANA timeZone for DST-aware calendar-day boundaries and buckets. utcOffset remains supported for older clients and as a fallback when the Gateway runtime does not recognize the requested zone.
• sessions.usage.timeseries returns timeseries usage for one session.
• sessions.usage.logs returns usage log entries for one session. Both detail methods accept the selected row's key and optional agentId. Preserve both fields when opening details for an unqualified key such as global.

Memory

• memory.search with version: 2 searches the selected provider and returns provider-scoped references. Omitting version, or sending version: 1, uses the legacy file-shaped contract only for legacy providers. A native provider returns an error naming the plugin; retry with version: 2.
• memory.get resolves a provider-scoped reference through the selected provider.
• memory.status reports selected-provider health.

These methods require authenticated operator read authority. memory.get and memory.status use the provider-runtime contract directly; memory.search selects that contract when version: 2 is present.

Channels and login helpers

• channels.status returns built-in + bundled channel/plugin status summaries.
• channels.start (operator.admin) starts one channel account runtime without re-authenticating. Params { channel, accountId? }; omitted accountId selects the default account. Responds { channel, accountId, started, outcome }, with started true only when the resulting runtime snapshot reports running: true. outcome carries the account lifecycle decision: { status: "handed-off" }, { status: "retry", reason }, or { status: "skipped", reason }. The RPC is a manual override of automatic-start suppression; no manual parameter is accepted. This is not a provider-connectivity check; see Per-account recovery for reasons and recovery guidance.
• channels.stop (operator.admin) stops one channel account runtime without clearing auth state. Params { channel, accountId? }; omitted accountId selects the default account. Responds { channel, accountId, stopped }, with stopped true when the resulting runtime snapshot does not report running: true. Unlike channels.logout, it retains the account's credentials.
• channels.logout logs out a specific channel/account where the channel supports it.
• web.login.start starts a QR/web login flow. Params include optional { channel, accountId, force, timeoutMs, verbose }. When channel is present, the Gateway normalizes its canonical id or alias and dispatches only to that installed channel plugin. Omitting channel preserves the legacy behavior of selecting the first loaded QR-capable provider. A provider may return an opaque sessionKey with its QR response.
• web.login.wait waits for that flow to complete and starts the channel on success. Params include optional { channel, accountId, sessionKey, timeoutMs, currentQrDataUrl }. Use the same channel as web.login.start and pass its returned sessionKey through unchanged so the provider can correlate the wait request with the QR session. Omitting channel retains the same legacy provider fallback as web.login.start.
• push.test sends a test APNs push to a registered iOS node.
• voicewake.get returns the stored wake-word triggers.
• voicewake.set updates wake-word triggers and broadcasts the change.

Channel DM pairing

channels.pairing.list, channels.pairing.approve, and channels.pairing.dismiss manage channel DM access requests. They are separate from device bootstrap.

The existing list request accepts optional channel and accountId and returns accounts, requests, commandOwnerConfigured, and limits. Public request rows contain a requestId and sender/account metadata, never the pairing code. Existing approval and dismissal use channel, accountId, and requestId; approval also accepts notify and bootstrapCommandOwner. Approval returns requestId, senderId, notification, and commandOwnerBootstrap; dismissal returns requestId and senderId. These contracts remain unchanged.

The local CLI uses two explicit, operator.admin-protected branches after negotiating the corresponding owner capability:

The code selector and existing request-ID selector are mutually exclusive. Omitting accountId in the CLI branch preserves cross-account listing and code lookup; an explicit account restricts both. The owner resolves and mutates the matching request. CLI output remains unchanged, and first-command-owner config bootstrap and optional notification remain client-side after acknowledgement. Neither runs after a refusal or unknown outcome. Listing is mutation-capable because it prunes expired or excess pending requests.

Plugin management

• plugins.list (operator.read) returns the installed plugin inventory plus locally curated official picks, diagnostics, and whether the current install mode allows mutations. It includes the current runtime generation and each plugin's runtime state separately from configured enablement.

• plugins.inspect (operator.read) accepts { pluginId } for installed, staged, or official candidates; { source: "clawhub", packageName, version? } for arbitrary ClawHub plugins; or { catalogId, version? } using a discovery identity. Installed and staged inspections include a reviewToken for capability consent. Remote inspections expose the selected catalog detail, applicable grants, and release trust. Their declaredSurfaceStatus is partial or unavailable: registry summaries omit some capability groups and package siblings, so they cannot issue a consent token. Empty unsupported groups do not mean the package declares no such capabilities.

• plugins.search (operator.read) searches installable ClawHub code-plugin and bundle-plugin families. Pass non-empty query and optional limit from 1 to 100.

• plugins.catalog.browse (operator.read) returns ClawHub discovery results with Gateway-local installed and bundled state. The Control UI adds searchSource: "openclaw-control-ui" only after manual input of at least two characters settles for 250 ms. Initial browsing, refreshes, filter changes, and generic API searches omit it. The Gateway honors CLAWHUB_DISABLE_TELEMETRY and does not replay attributed HTTP searches after transient failures. ClawHub records the normalized query, source, and remote result counts; those counts exclude local-only matches added by the Gateway. Installed inventory and operator, device, and session identities are not included in the observation.

• plugins.catalog.get (operator.read) accepts { id, version? } using the unchanged discovery ID from plugins.catalog.browse. Detail includes publisher metadata, README, topics, package tags, selected-release notes, capabilities, configuration, verification, and security when supplied by ClawHub. detail.selectedRelease names the actual release independently of plugin.catalog.latestVersion; null means no release was selected. detail.metadata explicitly reports available or missing README, manifest, and security data. An installed counterpart can supply local detail during registry outages; remoteError explains the failure, and remote selected-release facts remain unknown. Local-only identities do not support remote version selection.

• plugins.install (operator.admin) accepts these source-specific request fields:

  source	Fields
  bundled	pluginId, optional spec
  clawhub	packageName, optional version, expectedPluginId, expectedIntegrity
  git	spec
  local	path, optional link
  marketplace	marketplace, plugin
  npm	spec, optional pin, expectedPluginId, expectedIntegrity
  npm-pack	archivePath
  official	pluginId, optional version: "latest", pin

  Each request can also include mode: "install" | "update", acknowledgeInstallPolicyWarning: true, and acknowledgeCapabilities: { reviewToken }. Omitted mode means install. Local paths, npm-pack archives, marketplace sources, and local Git sources require a connection the Gateway identifies as local; paths refer to that Gateway host. Use an npm spec for a specific official package version.

  When install policy returns warn, the error details include installPolicyCode: "install_policy_warning_acknowledgement_required", the target, reason, and optional findings. After review, retrying the same action with acknowledgeInstallPolicyWarning: true approves every warning in that install invocation; each warning is freshly evaluated before installation continues. block and policy failures remain terminal. ClawHub installs preserve Gateway trust and integrity checks.

• plugins.setEnabled (operator.admin) changes one installed plugin's enabled policy with { pluginId, enabled, acknowledgeCapabilities? }. The response includes the updated catalog entry and any slot-selection warnings.

• plugins.reload (operator.admin) reloads one or more discovered plugins with { plugins: [{ pluginId, installHash?, sourceDigests? }], acknowledgeCapabilities? }, preserving configured enablement. Send 1–64 targets; a one-plugin request uses the same array envelope. The response contains pluginIds, a boolean restartRequired, and a required runtime receipt. When compiled bundled code retains its loaded module after its files change, restartRequired is true and the result explains why.

• plugins.refresh (operator.admin) refreshes plugin metadata and applies the resulting registry with {}.

• plugins.uninstall (operator.admin) removes one externally installed plugin with { pluginId, keepFiles? }: config references, the install record, and managed files. Bundled plugins cannot be uninstalled, only disabled. The response lists the removal actions.

Catalog detail and client confirmation

detail.downloadability has one of these shapes:

ClawHub currently exposes a selected plugin release's download-policy block, but its read-only detail and artifact resolver do not check stored artifact bytes. A permitted security verdict, download URL, listing, or local install action therefore produces unknown, never downloadable. A side-effect-free per-release availability fact requires a ClawHub contract extension. Gateway inspection does not download packages to check them; registry download routes record telemetry.

A native client can fetch plugins.catalog.get, inspect the same catalogId, display the returned facts, and collect confirmation itself. After approval, call plugins.install with source: "clawhub", the exact returned packageName, and selectedRelease.version when present. Preserve scope and publisher spelling; do not rebuild the package name from a runtime plugin ID. If installation requires capability consent or install-policy acknowledgment, display that owner-issued review and retry the same intent with its acknowledgment. Catalog inspection does not grant consent or bypass install policy, integrity, trust, or authorization. Cancel sends no installation RPC. The Gateway does not manage confirmation dialogs.

Runtime-only refresh works with read-only, Nix-managed, and root $include configurations without rewriting them. Plugin lifecycle and Claw package removal requests return retryable UNAVAILABLE with retryAfterMs when another plugin or config operation is already applying. This busy response occurs before the requested mutation starts; retry after the current operation completes. Failures after a mutation starts retain their application details and are not automatically retryable.

These mutations wait for runtime application without restarting the Gateway. Successful responses include restartRequired and a runtime receipt with operationId, generation, pluginIds, and optional sourceDigests. Reloading unchanged bundled code or replacing captured external code returns restartRequired: false; edited bundled code that remains loaded, or whose files cannot be verified, requires a restart. The Gateway broadcasts plugins.changed with { generation } after publication. Runtime replacement errors include details.runtime.phase and details.runtime.committed, so clients can distinguish rejection before publication from failure after a new generation became active.

If a multi-step mutation publishes a runtime and later fails, details.runtime retains the published receipt with committed: true. A subsequent replacement that fails before publication is reported separately in details.runtimeAttempt. Clients should refresh their runtime view after any committed change, even when the overall mutation fails.

An install error can also include details.persistence: { operation: "install", pluginId }. This records that installation was saved, independently of runtime publication. Refresh the installed inventory and config; fix the reported problem and reload the installed plugin instead of blindly repeating installation. details.runtime.committed: false does not mean the installation was rolled back.

Install, enable, and reload may require capability consent. After reviewing the declared capabilities, pass acknowledgeCapabilities: { reviewToken }; the token is checked against a fresh inspection before application. This is separate from install-policy warning approval. See Plugin management.

Reload preconditions are optional. installHash is the lowercase SHA-256 of the canonical saved install record and requires a tracked package. sourceDigests maps resolved runtime plugin IDs to lowercase SHA-256 source digests. Tracked targets resolve their entire package; a bundled or configured source without an install record resolves its discovered runtime ID. Ambiguous, missing, or conflicting managed ownership still rejects the request. The Gateway checks target ownership and expected records before and after consent, then validates source expectations against the captured code it loads. Consent can update the saved install record: if that changes a supplied installHash, reload fails visibly without publishing runtime. The caller must refresh its expected state before retrying; the Gateway never rewrites the supplied hash. An acknowledgment covers its reviewed declared surface, and a different required surface stops the operation before runtime publication. Reload does not rebuild compiled bundled code or grant file-mutation authority.

sourceDigests requires a captured-source plugin instance and Node's synchronous module hooks. Runtimes without those hooks, including Bun 1.4.2, omit these digests and reject requests that supply them. Ordinary Bun reloads capture fresh source for the replacement while retaining the old instance for admitted consumers; see runtime instance and source lifetime.

ClawHub catalog discovery

catalog.browse and catalog.searchKeywords require operator.read. Clients check hello-ok.features.methods before using them; older Gateways continue to expose the existing plugin and skill RPCs. All registry requests run on the Gateway, including when it runs remotely or inside WSL.

Browse and search

Call catalog.browse with these fields:

For example:

{
  "kind": "skill",
  "officialOnly": true,
  "pageSize": 20,
  "agentId": "main"
}

The response contains items and mode (catalog, trending, or search). Catalog and trending pages can return nextCursor. Filtering can produce an empty page with a continuation; continue while that cursor exists. Full catalog browsing uses the registry's paginated plugin and native skill catalogs. Trending is a bounded ranking feed, not the complete catalog. The existing initial plugins.catalog.browse overview retains its bounded behavior.

Text search returns at most searchLimit upstream candidates, equal to the requested page size. Official filtering can reduce that count. Upstream search has no continuation, so it cannot promise every possible matching listing. A successful empty response means no qualifying listings were returned. remoteError means registry discovery failed; any returned cursor repeats the input cursor so the client can retry the same page. Installation-status failure returns UNAVAILABLE instead of claiming that listings are uninstalled.

Each item has kind, registry, id, catalog metadata, and local facts. Treat (kind, registry, id) as its canonical identity. Plugin IDs preserve the existing ch_... discovery identity, so plugins.catalog.get can open details; catalog.packageName supplies the existing plugin installation locator. Skill IDs equal installRef: native @publisher/slug or a source-qualified external reference. Pass installRef unchanged as slug to existing skill lifecycle RPCs. Respect installOnly; those entries have no ordinary skill detail card. The companion listing detail workstream does not change these identities.

Skill local facts include the resolved agentId, installed, enabled, eligible, and, when installed, skillKey. They come from the selected workspace's existing status reader and valid tracked registry/source/publisher identity. A matching display name or bare slug does not establish installation. Plugin local facts reuse the existing managed inventory and mutation policy. Neither operation installs anything or changes approval requirements.

Bulk keyword discovery

Call catalog.searchKeywords with keywords (1–100 nonblank strings, each at most 200 characters), optional kinds (plugin, skill, or both; default both), agentId, pageSize (1–100, default 20), and an optional returned cursor. The Gateway trims and collapses whitespace, lowercases and deduplicates terms, and searches each individual term for each selected kind. It always returns only official listings, deduplicated by canonical identity, in deterministic identity order. It never concatenates the terms or interprets application inventories. Clients own application detection and keyword generation.

The response contains the normalized keywords, items, searchLimit: 100, errors (each with kind, query, and message), and optional nextCursor. The cursor pages the complete union of those bounded searches; no matches within that union are silently dropped. The upstream 100-candidate limit still applies to each term and kind, so this is not an exhaustive registry search. An empty union with no errors differs from an empty or partial union with failed queries. Retry a request with errors to recover failed terms.

Bulk continuation re-reads the same bounded searches with at most four searches in flight, without retaining a second inventory. Cursors bind the normalized terms, kinds, registry, selected workspace, and result identities. If the matches change, the Gateway returns INVALID_REQUEST with a restart instruction rather than silently skipping results. Large keyword sets and subsequent pages perform more registry reads than ordinary searches; clients should allow a longer RPC request timeout and retain the original request for retries.

Upstream contracts and gaps

Native skill catalog browsing and search use ClawHub's existing /api/v1/packages?family=skill and /api/v1/packages/search?family=skill contracts. These project the native skill catalog and expose the listing's isOfficial flag. /api/v1/skills currently omits that flag. Canonical skill search and trending can combine publisher and listing official status; the new catalog does not use publisher official status as a substitute. Native trending entries therefore read their listing flag from package metadata in bounded batches. The package-detail route can resolve a same-named package first; its metadata qualifies only when family, slug, and publisher match the exact skill. Mismatched metadata leaves official status unknown. Missing flags never qualify; featured status, verification tiers, publisher handles, and bundled provenance cannot qualify a listing either.

The package skill catalog currently covers native ClawHub skills. External sources can appear in the canonical trending feed with their original install-only identities, but currently expose no separate listing-level official flag and cannot qualify for official suggestions. Existing skills.search retains its canonical cross-source search and omitted-query trending behavior; its public result contract also declares the existing optional official field. No cross-kind category taxonomy or global relevance ranking is introduced.

Messaging and logs

• send is the direct outbound-delivery RPC for channel/account/thread-targeted sends outside the chat runner.
• logs.tail returns the configured gateway file-log tail with cursor/limit and max-byte controls.

Operator terminal

• terminal.open starts a host PTY for an explicit agentId or the default agent and returns the resolved agent, working directory, shell, and confinement state. Passing sessionKey binds the PTY to that exact agent session and attaches the calling connection as its first viewer; omitting it creates a connection-owned operator terminal.
• terminal.input and terminal.resize operate on sessions owned by the calling connection and agent-owned sessions where that connection is an attached viewer. terminal.close kills a connection-owned session, but only detaches the calling viewer from an established agent-owned session. For a new session-bound Control UI terminal, the initiating viewer's close or disconnect discards the PTY until the browser or exact-session agent first adopts it through an authorized operation.
• terminal.upload accepts one base64 file up to 16 MiB, stages it in a private 24-hour temporary directory on the session's Gateway or paired-node host, and returns the absolute path. The caller must still paste or otherwise use that path; the RPC never writes terminal input or executes a command.
• terminal.data and terminal.exit events stream to the connection owner and attached viewers. Conversation-owned terminals remain persistent. The agent-facing terminal tool can list, read, resize, or close only terminals an operator opened for its exact session; it cannot open terminals. Agent input follows effective session and exec policy: full (YOLO) sends immediately, guarded and workspace (including accept-only or Guardian-reviewed flows) require explicit one-time approval of that exact input, and read-only or deny blocks it.
• Connection-owned sessions whose connection drops are detached, not killed: they stay reattachable for gateway.terminal.detachedSessionTimeoutSeconds (default 300; 0 restores kill-on-disconnect) while recent output accumulates in a bounded server-side buffer. Established agent-owned sessions likewise survive viewer disconnect.
• terminal.list returns attachable sessions. terminal.attach returns the replay buffer and either rebinds a connection-owned session (tmux-style take-over — a previous live owner receives terminal.exit with reason detached) or adds the connection as a viewer of an agent-owned session.
• Every terminal method requires operator.admin; gateway.terminal.enabled is on by default and refuses every method when set to false. Fully sandboxed agents are refused, and an agent policy change closes existing and in-flight PTYs, detached ones included.