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
.envnext todocker-compose.yml: Docker-specific values like image name, ports, andOPENCLAW_GATEWAY_TOKEN.clawdock-tokenreads the token from here. ~/.openclaw/.env(mounted into the container): env-backed secrets OpenClaw itself manages, alongsideopenclaw.jsonandagents/<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
Source: docs/install/clawdock.md