runtime-sentinel

A runtime security skill for OpenClaw. Defends against the threat landscape exposed by ClawHavoc: backdoored skills, prompt injection via external data, credential exfiltration, and process-level abuse.

Free tier: skill integrity checks, basic injection scanning.
Premium (x402/USDC/Base): continuous daemon monitoring, network egress monitoring, process anomaly detection, full audit log.

Quick start

# One-shot audit of all installed skills (free)
sentinel audit

# Continuous guardian daemon (premium — will prompt for x402 payment)
sentinel daemon start

# Scan a single skill before installing
sentinel check <skill-path-or-clawhub-id>

What runtime-sentinel defends against

See references/threat-model.md for the full threat matrix. In brief:

Workflow

1 — First-time setup

# Install the binary (built from scripts/src/)
cargo install --path scripts/ --bin sentinel

# Verify installation and print wallet address
sentinel setup

sentinel setup will:

• Generate or import a Base wallet (BIP-39, stored in ~/.sentinel/wallet)
• Print the wallet address so the user can fund it with USDC for premium
• Run a free baseline audit and print results

2 — On-demand audit (free)

When the user says anything like "scan my skills", "audit", "check for threats":

sentinel audit [--path ~/.openclaw/skills]

Output: a structured report of hash mismatches, injection patterns, and exposed credentials. No payment required.

3 — Single skill check before install (free)

When the user wants to vet a skill before running clawhub install:

sentinel check <skill-directory-or-clawhub-id>

Prints a risk score (LOW / MEDIUM / HIGH / CRITICAL) with findings.

4 — Premium features via x402

When the user asks for daemon mode, egress monitoring, or process anomaly detection, sentinel will automatically:

1. Hit the sentinel API endpoint
2. Receive a 402 Payment Required with price in the X-Payment-Request header (typically $0.01–$0.05/day for daemon mode)
3. Sign the USDC transfer from ~/.sentinel/wallet
4. Retry the request — access granted for the paid period

The user will see the price before their wallet signs anything. All non-custodial. See references/x402-payment.md for the full payment flow.

5 — Daemon mode (premium)

sentinel daemon start    # runs in foreground, writes to ~/.sentinel/daemon.log
# Run in background from your shell if needed:
#   sentinel daemon start > ~/.sentinel/daemon.log 2>&1 &
#   disown
sentinel daemon status
sentinel daemon stop
sentinel daemon logs     # tail the audit log

The daemon watches:

• ~/.openclaw/skills/** for file mutations (inotify / FSEvents)
• ~/.openclaw/SOUL.md and MEMORY.md for unauthorized writes
• Network connections made by skill subprocesses
• Child process trees for undeclared shell commands

Alerts are delivered via OpenClaw's notification system and written to the audit log.

Interpreting results

Risk levels

• LOW: No findings, or informational only (e.g. skill requests network but declares it)
• MEDIUM: Undeclared permission, suspicious pattern, or stale hash
• HIGH: Known malicious pattern, credential exposure, or undeclared egress
• CRITICAL: Active exfiltration attempt, reverse shell indicator, or SOUL.md mutation

What to do on HIGH / CRITICAL

1. sentinel isolate <skill-name> — quarantines the skill (moves it out of the active skills directory)
2. Review the finding in ~/.sentinel/audit.log
3. Check the skill's ClawHub VirusTotal report
4. If confirmed malicious, clawhub uninstall <skill> and report via sentinel report <skill-name>

Reference files

Read these when you need deeper detail:

• references/threat-model.md — Full threat matrix and attack descriptions from ClawHavoc and similar campaigns
• references/x402-payment.md — x402 payment flow, wallet setup, and troubleshooting
• references/binary-build.md — How to build sentinel from source, cross- compilation targets, CI/CD

Wallet setup for premium features

sentinel wallet show      # print address and USDC balance
sentinel wallet fund      # print QR code and address to send USDC
sentinel wallet export    # export mnemonic for backup (handle carefully)
sentinel wallet recover   # restore from mnemonic on a new machine

Minimum recommended balance for uninterrupted daemon mode: $1 USDC (roughly 20–100 days of coverage depending on scan frequency).

Privacy

sentinel is fully local. No skill content, file paths, or scan results are sent to any server. The only outbound calls are:

1. x402 payment verification to the Base facilitator (amount + wallet address only)
2. Optional: VirusTotal hash lookups (hash only, no file content)

Both can be disabled with --offline for air-gapped environments (free tier only in offline mode).