VAIBot Guard (OpenClaw Skill)

This skill provides a local policy decision service plus a vaibot-guard CLI that enforces pre-execution checks and writes a tamper-evident audit log.

Deployment modes

• Local workstation mode (recommended default): run vaibot-guard as a systemd user service (systemctl --user), optionally coupled to openclaw-gateway.service so it starts whenever OpenClaw starts (typically at login).
• VPS / production mode: run vaibot-guard as a systemd system service (sudo systemctl) under a dedicated user, with stricter sandboxing and boot-time startup.

See: references/ops-runbook.md.

Note: some registries/packagers may strip *.service files. This skill’s install-local command generates the user unit file at install time, so the Clawhub-installed package does not need to include systemd/*/*.service.

Quick Start (local workstation)

0) One-time install + configure (recommended)

Fast path (recommended): one-command local install.

This will:

• install a systemd user service (~/.config/systemd/user/vaibot-guard.service)
• create ~/.config/vaibot-guard/vaibot-guard.env (mode 0600) if missing
• auto-generate VAIBOT_GUARD_TOKEN if it isn’t already set

node scripts/vaibot-guard.mjs install-local

Or run the interactive configurator only (writes/updates ~/.config/vaibot-guard/vaibot-guard.env with chmod 600):

node scripts/vaibot-guard.mjs configure

1) Start + smoke test

Foreground (quick dev check)

From this skill directory:

# 1) Start the guard service (foreground)
# Reads VAIBOT_GUARD_TOKEN (and other settings) from:
#   - env vars, or
#   - ~/.config/vaibot-guard/vaibot-guard.env
node scripts/vaibot-guard-service.mjs

In another terminal:

# 2) Precheck + exec (example)
node scripts/vaibot-guard.mjs precheck --intent '{"tool":"system.run","action":"exec","command":"/bin/echo","cwd":".","args":["hello"],"expectedOutputs":["hello"]}'

node scripts/vaibot-guard.mjs exec --intent '{"tool":"system.run","action":"exec","command":"/bin/echo","cwd":".","args":["hello"],"expectedOutputs":["hello"]}' -- /bin/echo hello

Systemd (recommended)

After running install-local, you can manage it with:

systemctl --user daemon-reload
systemctl --user enable --now vaibot-guard
systemctl --user status vaibot-guard --no-pager

Notes:

• install-local generates the user .service unit from an embedded template (so publishing/installing the skill does not need to ship systemd/*/*.service files).
• VPS/system service deployment is still supported; see references/ops-runbook.md.

2) (Optional) Wire VAIBot Guard enforcement into OpenClaw (plugin bridge)

If you are using the vaibot-guard-bridge OpenClaw plugin/tool approach (deny system.run, allow vaibot_exec), use:

# VAIBOT_GUARD_TOKEN must match what your running guard service expects.
export VAIBOT_GUARD_TOKEN="..."
node scripts/wire-openclaw-bridge.mjs

# then restart gateway
openclaw gateway restart

Components

• scripts/vaibot-guard-service.mjs — local HTTP policy service
  • GET /health
  • POST /v1/decide/exec (precheck)
  • POST /v1/finalize
  • POST /api/proof (Merkle inclusion proofs)
• scripts/vaibot-guard.mjs — CLI entrypoint (run with node scripts/vaibot-guard.mjs ...)

Required environment (MVP)

• Node.js 18+ on the host

Optional:

• VAIBOT_GUARD_HOST (default 127.0.0.1)
• VAIBOT_GUARD_PORT (default 39111)
• VAIBOT_WORKSPACE (default process.cwd())
• VAIBOT_GUARD_LOG_DIR (default ${VAIBOT_WORKSPACE}/.vaibot-guard)
• VAIBOT_GUARD_TOKEN (recommended): bearer token required for service endpoints (/v1/decide/exec, /v1/finalize, /v1/flush, /api/proof)
• VAIBOT_POLICY_PATH (default: references/policy.default.json): policy configuration (deny/approve tokens, allowlisted domains, redaction patterns, and file-mutation posture).
• VAIBOT_CHECKPOINT_HASH_ALG (reserved): future knob for migrating checkpoint chaining (checkpoint.hash) to SHA3-512. Currently checkpoint chaining uses SHA-256 for consistency.
• VAIBOT_API_URL (e.g. https://www.vaibot.io/api) to anchor receipts via /prove
• VAIBOT_API_KEY bearer token for /prove (Authorization: Bearer <API KEY>)
• VAIBOT_PROVE_MODEL (default vaibot-guard): model field required by VAIBot /api/prove.
• VAIBOT_PROVE_MODE (off|best-effort|required, default best-effort). In required mode, proving is fail-closed for both per-event receipts and checkpoint roots ("no proof, no action"). For security-first deployments, set this to required.
• VAIBOT_MERKLE_CHECKPOINT_EVERY (default 50): count-based checkpointing interval (events).
• VAIBOT_MERKLE_CHECKPOINT_EVERY_MS (default 600000): time-based checkpointing interval (ms).

Checkpointing is whichever comes first: if either threshold is met and there are new events since the last checkpoint, a new checkpoint root is created. Recommended: 10 minutes and/or a few hundred–few thousand events depending on expected proof frequency.

Rules (MUST FOLLOW)

1. Start the guard service (once per host):

node scripts/vaibot-guard-service.mjs

2. Before running any risky action, run a precheck:

node scripts/vaibot-guard.mjs precheck --intent '<json>'

3. If the decision is deny, do not execute.

4. If the decision is approve, require explicit human approval (MVP: stop and surface approvalId).

5. If the decision is allow, execute only via:

node scripts/vaibot-guard.mjs exec --intent '<json>' -- <command...>

6. Ensure the run is finalized (the exec command auto-finalizes on exit; you can also call it manually):

node scripts/vaibot-guard.mjs finalize --run_id <id> --result '<json>'

Intent JSON (minimum fields)

The guard service requires these keys at minimum:

{
  "tool": "system.run",
  "action": "exec",
  "command": "/usr/bin/uname",
  "cwd": "."
}

Recommended additional fields (use them when available):

• args: string[]
• env_keys: string[]
• network: { destinations: string[] }
• files: { read: string[], write: string[], delete: string[] }
• correlation: { agent_id, session_id, trace_id }

Policy

See: references/policy.md See: references/receipt-schema.md See: references/checkpoint-schema.md See: references/idempotency.md See: references/metadata-indexing.md See: references/merkle-replay.md See: references/inclusion-proofs.md See: references/required-mode.md

Output / receipts

• Decisions + finalize events are appended to hash-chained JSONL logs in .vaibot-guard/.
• These logs are designed to be tamper-evident (each line includes prevHash).