Guardian — OpenClaw 7x24 Watchdog & Auto-Healer

Overview

Deploy a lightweight watchdog that checks OpenClaw health every 5 minutes and auto-heals when problems are found. Runs as a cron job — zero manual intervention after setup. Use when the user asks to set up health monitoring, auto-healing, watchdog, or crash recovery for OpenClaw.

Triggers

"watchdog", "guardian", "auto-heal", "auto-restart", "health monitor", "7x24 monitor", "crash recovery", "memory monitor", "OOM guard".

Quick Start

Install and schedule with cron in one go:

1. Copy the watchdog script to the workspace (one-time):

   Copy scripts/watchdog.py → ~/.openclaw/workspace/guardian/watchdog.py
   

   (Use cp -r / copy; adjust the destination as needed. Keep the guardian/ folder in workspace.)

2. Schedule via cron (5-minute interval): Use the cron tool to create a recurring agentTurn job:

   {
     "schedule": { "kind": "every", "everyMs": 300000 },
     "payload": {
       "kind": "agentTurn",
       "message": "Run guardian watchdog: execute `python3 ~/.openclaw/workspace/guardian/watchdog.py`. Report issues only if gateway is down, memory exceeds threshold, or disk is low. Otherwise reply HEALTH_OK.",
       "timeoutSeconds": 60
     },
     "sessionTarget": "isolated",
     "name": "guardian:watchdog",
     "delivery": { "mode": "announce" }
   }
   

3. Verify — after the first run, check logs:

   cat ~/.openclaw/logs/guardian.log     # macOS/Linux
   type %USERPROFILE%\.openclaw\logs\guardian.log   # Windows
   

What It Monitors

Manual Run

To run a one-off check without waiting for cron:

python3 ~/.openclaw/workspace/guardian/watchdog.py

Logs

All checks are recorded to ~/.openclaw/logs/guardian.log with timestamps. Each run produces a delimited block like:

[2026-05-04 23:00:00] ============================
[2026-05-04 23:00:00] Guardian Watchdog check starting...
[2026-05-04 23:00:00] OK: Gateway is responsive.
[2026-05-04 23:00:00] OK: Memory usage 234 MB (500 MB warn, 1000 MB kill).
[2026-05-04 23:00:00] OK: Disk free space 45.2 GB.
[2026-05-04 23:00:00] RESULT: All systems healthy.
[2026-05-04 23:00:00] ============================

Managing the Cron Job

• List jobs: openclaw cron list
• Run now: openclaw cron run <job-id> (find id from list)
• Stop: openclaw cron update <job-id> --enabled false
• Remove: openclaw cron remove <job-id>

Troubleshooting

• "openclaw CLI not found": The watchdog uses shutil.which("openclaw"). If the CLI is not in PATH, manually set the path in watchdog.py by editing find_openclaw_cli().
• Restart fails: Gateway may need manual intervention. Check openclaw gateway status directly.
• High memory but no restart: Memory threshold only triggers restart at >1 GB. Below that, only warns.
• Windows encoding: The script writes logs in UTF-8. If reading logs produces garbled output, use chcp 65001 first.