Docker

Docker is optional. Use it only if you want a containerized gateway or to validate the Docker flow.

# Is Docker right for me?

• Yes: you want an isolated, throwaway gateway environment or to run OpenClaw on a host without local installs.
• No: you are running on your own machine and just want the fastest dev loop. Use the normal install flow instead.
• Sandboxing note: the default sandbox backend uses Docker when sandboxing is enabled, but sandboxing is off by default and does not require the full gateway to run in Docker. SSH and OpenShell sandbox backends are also available. See Sandboxing.

# Prerequisites

• Docker Desktop (or Docker Engine) + Docker Compose v2
• At least 2 GB RAM for image build (pnpm install may be OOM-killed on 1 GB hosts with exit 137)
• Enough disk for images and logs
• If running on a VPS/public host, review Security hardening for network exposure, especially Docker DOCKER-USER firewall policy.

# Containerized gateway

./scripts/docker/setup.sh

export OPENCLAW_IMAGE="ghcr.io/openclaw/openclaw:latest"
./scripts/docker/setup.sh

docker compose run --rm openclaw-cli dashboard --no-open

# WhatsApp (QR)
docker compose run --rm openclaw-cli channels login

# Telegram
docker compose run --rm openclaw-cli channels add --channel telegram --token "<token>"

# Discord
docker compose run --rm openclaw-cli channels add --channel discord --token "<token>"

# Manual flow

If you prefer to run each step yourself instead of using the setup script:

docker build -t openclaw:local -f Dockerfile .
docker compose run --rm --no-deps --entrypoint node openclaw-gateway \
  dist/index.js onboard --mode local --no-install-daemon
docker compose run --rm --no-deps --entrypoint node openclaw-gateway \
  dist/index.js config set --batch-json '[{"path":"gateway.mode","value":"local"},{"path":"gateway.bind","value":"lan"},{"path":"gateway.controlUi.allowedOrigins","value":["http://localhost:18789","http://127.0.0.1:18789"]}]'
docker compose up -d openclaw-gateway

# Environment variables

The setup script accepts these optional environment variables:

Maintainers can test bundled plugin source against a packaged image by mounting one plugin source directory over its packaged source path, for example OPENCLAW_EXTRA_MOUNTS=/path/to/fork/extensions/synology-chat:/app/extensions/synology-chat:ro. That mounted source directory overrides the matching compiled /app/dist/extensions/synology-chat bundle for the same plugin id.

# Observability

OpenTelemetry export is outbound from the Gateway container to your OTLP collector. It does not require a published Docker port. If you build the image locally and want the bundled OpenTelemetry exporter available inside the image, include its runtime dependencies:

export OPENCLAW_EXTENSIONS="diagnostics-otel"
export OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT="http://otel-collector:4318"
export OTEL_SERVICE_NAME="openclaw-gateway"
./scripts/docker/setup.sh

Install the official @openclaw/diagnostics-otel plugin from ClawHub in packaged Docker installs before enabling export. Custom source-built images can still include the local plugin source with OPENCLAW_EXTENSIONS=diagnostics-otel. To enable export, allow and enable the diagnostics-otel plugin in config, then set diagnostics.otel.enabled=true or use the config example in OpenTelemetry export. Collector auth headers are configured through diagnostics.otel.headers, not through Docker environment variables.

Prometheus metrics use the already-published Gateway port. Install clawhub:@openclaw/diagnostics-prometheus, enable the diagnostics-prometheus plugin, then scrape:

http://<gateway-host>:18789/api/diagnostics/prometheus

The route is protected by Gateway authentication. Do not expose a separate public /metrics port or unauthenticated reverse-proxy path. See Prometheus metrics.

# Health checks

Container probe endpoints (no auth required):

curl -fsS http://127.0.0.1:18789/healthz   # liveness
curl -fsS http://127.0.0.1:18789/readyz     # readiness

The Docker image includes a built-in HEALTHCHECK that pings /healthz. If checks keep failing, Docker marks the container as unhealthy and orchestration systems can restart or replace it.

Authenticated deep health snapshot:

docker compose exec openclaw-gateway node dist/index.js health --token "$OPENCLAW_GATEWAY_TOKEN"

# LAN vs loopback

scripts/docker/setup.sh defaults OPENCLAW_GATEWAY_BIND=lan so host access to http://127.0.0.1:18789 works with Docker port publishing.

• lan (default): host browser and host CLI can reach the published gateway port.
• loopback: only processes inside the container network namespace can reach the gateway directly.

# Host Local Providers

When OpenClaw runs in Docker, 127.0.0.1 inside the container is the container itself, not your host machine. Use host.docker.internal for AI providers that run on the host:

The bundled Docker setup uses those host URLs as the LM Studio and Ollama onboarding defaults, and docker-compose.yml maps host.docker.internal to Docker's host gateway for Linux Docker Engine. Docker Desktop already provides the same hostname on macOS and Windows.

Host services must also listen on an address reachable from Docker:

lms server start --port 1234 --bind 0.0.0.0
OLLAMA_HOST=0.0.0.0:11434 ollama serve

If you use your own Compose file or docker run command, add the same host mapping yourself, for example --add-host=host.docker.internal:host-gateway.

# Bonjour / mDNS

Docker bridge networking usually does not forward Bonjour/mDNS multicast (224.0.0.251:5353) reliably. The bundled Compose setup therefore defaults OPENCLAW_DISABLE_BONJOUR=1 so the Gateway does not crash-loop or repeatedly restart advertising when the bridge drops multicast traffic.

Use the published Gateway URL, Tailscale, or wide-area DNS-SD for Docker hosts. Set OPENCLAW_DISABLE_BONJOUR=0 only when running with host networking, macvlan, or another network where mDNS multicast is known to work.

For gotchas and troubleshooting, see Bonjour discovery.

# Storage and persistence

Docker Compose bind-mounts OPENCLAW_CONFIG_DIR to /home/node/.openclaw and OPENCLAW_WORKSPACE_DIR to /home/node/.openclaw/workspace, so those paths survive container replacement. When either variable is unset, the bundled docker-compose.yml falls back to ${HOME}/.openclaw (and ${HOME}/.openclaw/workspace for the workspace mount), or /tmp/.openclaw when HOME itself is also missing. That keeps docker compose up from emitting an empty-source volume spec on bare environments.

That mounted config directory is where OpenClaw keeps:

• openclaw.json for behavior config
• agents/<agentId>/agent/auth-profiles.json for stored provider OAuth/API-key auth
• .env for env-backed runtime secrets such as OPENCLAW_GATEWAY_TOKEN

Installed downloadable plugins store their package state under the mounted OpenClaw home, so plugin install records and package roots survive container replacement. Gateway startup does not generate bundled-plugin dependency trees.

For full persistence details on VM deployments, see Docker VM Runtime - What persists where.

Disk growth hotspots: watch media/, session JSONL files, cron/runs/*.jsonl, installed plugin package roots, and rolling file logs under /tmp/openclaw/.

# Shell helpers (optional)

For easier day-to-day Docker management, install ClawDock:

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 installed ClawDock from the older scripts/shell-helpers/clawdock-helpers.sh raw path, rerun the install command above so your local helper file tracks the new location.

Then use clawdock-start, clawdock-stop, clawdock-dashboard, etc. Run clawdock-help for all commands. See ClawDock for the full helper guide.

export OPENCLAW_SANDBOX=1
./scripts/docker/setup.sh

export OPENCLAW_SANDBOX=1
export OPENCLAW_DOCKER_SOCKET=/run/user/1000/docker.sock
./scripts/docker/setup.sh

docker compose run -T --rm openclaw-cli gateway probe
docker compose run -T --rm openclaw-cli devices list --json

sudo chown -R 1000:1000 /path/to/openclaw-config /path/to/openclaw-workspace

FROM node:24-bookworm
RUN curl -fsSL https://bun.sh/install | bash
ENV PATH="/root/.bun/bin:${PATH}"
RUN corepack enable
WORKDIR /app
COPY package.json pnpm-lock.yaml pnpm-workspace.yaml .npmrc ./
COPY ui/package.json ./ui/package.json
COPY scripts ./scripts
RUN pnpm install --frozen-lockfile
COPY . .
RUN pnpm build
RUN pnpm ui:install
RUN pnpm ui:build
ENV NODE_ENV=production
CMD ["node","dist/index.js"]

# Running on a VPS?

See Hetzner (Docker VPS) and Docker VM Runtime for shared VM deployment steps including binary baking, persistence, and updates.

# Agent sandbox

When agents.defaults.sandbox is enabled with the Docker backend, the gateway runs agent tool execution (shell, file read/write, etc.) inside isolated Docker containers while the gateway itself stays on the host. This gives you a hard wall around untrusted or multi-tenant agent sessions without containerizing the entire gateway.

Sandbox scope can be per-agent (default), per-session, or shared. Each scope gets its own workspace mounted at /workspace. You can also configure allow/deny tool policies, network isolation, resource limits, and browser containers.

For full configuration, images, security notes, and multi-agent profiles, see:

• Sandboxing -- complete sandbox reference
• OpenShell -- interactive shell access to sandbox containers
• Multi-Agent Sandbox and Tools -- per-agent overrides

# Quick enable

{
  agents: {
    defaults: {
      sandbox: {
        mode: "non-main", // off | non-main | all
        scope: "agent", // session | agent | shared
      },
    },
  },
}

Build the default sandbox image (from a source checkout):

scripts/sandbox-setup.sh

For npm installs without a source checkout, see Sandboxing § Images and setup for inline docker build commands.

# Troubleshooting

docker compose run --rm openclaw-cli dashboard --no-open
docker compose run --rm openclaw-cli devices list
docker compose run --rm openclaw-cli devices approve <requestId>

docker compose run --rm openclaw-cli config set --batch-json '[{"path":"gateway.mode","value":"local"},{"path":"gateway.bind","value":"lan"}]'
docker compose run --rm openclaw-cli devices list --url ws://127.0.0.1:18789

# Related

• Install Overview — all installation methods
• Podman — Podman alternative to Docker
• ClawDock — Docker Compose community setup
• Updating — keeping OpenClaw up to date
• Configuration — gateway configuration after install