Overview

• A single long-lived Gateway owns all messaging surfaces (WhatsApp via Baileys, Telegram via grammY, Slack, Discord, Signal, iMessage, WebChat).

• Control-plane clients (macOS app, CLI, web UI, automations) connect to the Gateway over WebSocket on the configured bind host (default 127.0.0.1:18789).

• Nodes (macOS/iOS/Android/headless) also connect over WebSocket, but declare role: node with explicit caps/commands.

• One Gateway per host; it is the only place that opens a WhatsApp session.

• The canvas host is served by the Gateway HTTP server under:

  • /__openclaw__/canvas/ (agent-editable HTML/CSS/JS)
  • /__openclaw__/a2ui/ (A2UI host)

  It uses the same port as the Gateway (default 18789).

Components and flows

Gateway (daemon)

• Maintains provider connections.
• Exposes a typed WS API (requests, responses, server-push events).
• Validates inbound frames against JSON Schema.
• Emits events like agent, chat, presence, health, heartbeat, cron.

Clients (mac app / CLI / web admin)

• One WS connection per client.
• Send requests (health, status, send, agent, system-presence).
• Subscribe to events (tick, agent, presence, shutdown).

Nodes (macOS / iOS / Android / headless)

• Connect to the same WS server with role: node.
• Provide a device identity in connect; pairing is device-based (role node) and approval lives in the device pairing store.
• Expose commands like canvas.*, camera.*, screen.record, location.get.

Protocol details: Gateway protocol

WebChat

• Static UI that uses the Gateway WS API for chat history and sends.
• In remote setups, connects through the same SSH/Tailscale tunnel as other clients.

Connection lifecycle (single client)

sequenceDiagram
    participant Client
    participant Gateway

    Client->>Gateway: req:connect
    Gateway-->>Client: res (ok)
    Note right of Gateway: or res error + close
    Note left of Client: payload=hello-ok<br>snapshot: presence + health

    Gateway-->>Client: event:presence
    Gateway-->>Client: event:tick

    Client->>Gateway: req:agent
    Gateway-->>Client: res:agent<br>ack {runId, status:"accepted"}
    Gateway-->>Client: event:agent<br>(streaming)
    Gateway-->>Client: res:agent<br>final {runId, status, summary}

Wire protocol (summary)

• Transport: WebSocket, text frames with JSON payloads.
• First frame must be connect.
• After handshake:
  • Requests: {type:"req", id, method, params} → {type:"res", id, ok, payload|error}
  • Events: {type:"event", event, payload, seq?, stateVersion?}
• hello-ok.features.methods / events are discovery metadata, not a generated dump of every callable helper route.
• Shared-secret auth uses connect.params.auth.token or connect.params.auth.password, depending on the configured gateway auth mode.
• Identity-bearing modes such as Tailscale Serve (gateway.auth.allowTailscale: true) or non-loopback gateway.auth.mode: "trusted-proxy" satisfy auth from request headers instead of connect.params.auth.*.
• Private-ingress gateway.auth.mode: "none" disables shared-secret auth entirely; keep that mode off public/untrusted ingress.
• Idempotency keys are required for side-effecting methods (send, agent) to safely retry; the server keeps a short-lived dedupe cache.
• Nodes must include role: "node" plus caps/commands/permissions in connect.

Pairing and local trust

• All WS clients (operators + nodes) include a device identity on connect.
• New device IDs require pairing approval; the Gateway issues a device token for subsequent connects.
• Direct local loopback connects can be auto-approved to keep same-host UX smooth.
• OpenClaw also has a narrow backend/container-local self-connect path for trusted shared-secret helper flows.
• Tailnet and LAN connects, including same-host tailnet binds, still require explicit pairing approval.
• All connects must sign the connect.challenge nonce. Signature payload v3 also binds platform and deviceFamily; the gateway pins paired metadata on reconnect and requires repair pairing for metadata changes.
• Non-local connects still require explicit approval.
• Gateway auth (gateway.auth.*) still applies to all connections, local or remote.

Details: Gateway protocol, Pairing, Security.

Protocol typing and codegen

• TypeBox schemas define the protocol.
• JSON Schema is generated from those schemas.
• Swift models are generated from the JSON Schema.

Remote access

• Preferred: Tailscale or VPN.

• Alternative: SSH tunnel

  ssh -N -L 18789:127.0.0.1:18789 user@gateway-host
  

• The same handshake + auth token apply over the tunnel.

• TLS + optional pinning can be enabled for WS in remote setups.

Operations snapshot

• Start: openclaw gateway (foreground, logs to stdout).
• Health: health over WS (also included in hello-ok).
• Supervision: launchd/systemd for auto-restart.

Invariants

• Exactly one Gateway controls a single Baileys session per host.
• Handshake is mandatory; any non-JSON or non-connect first frame is a hard close.
• Events are not replayed; clients must refresh on gaps.

Related

• Agent Loop — detailed agent execution cycle
• Gateway Protocol — WebSocket protocol contract
• Queue — command queue and concurrency
• Security — trust model and hardening

Source: docs/concepts/architecture.md