Incident Response

Seven phases, in order. Never skip. Never assume — follow the evidence.

Outputs produced by this skill:

• Root cause statement (5 Whys chain with evidence citations)
• Restore confirmation (what was restored, verified working)
• Prevention commit (git commit hash of guard/rule added)
• Monitoring cron (job ID + schedule)
• Learning entry (appended to ~/.openclaw/learnings/rules.md)

Phase 0: Triage (2 min)

Check current state FIRST before investigating history.

# Is it actually broken right now?
openclaw status
ssh "<remote-host>" "launchctl list | grep openclaw"
# Test with correct protocol (check source: HTTP vs HTTPS?)

If currently working → report "recovered, investigating cause." If still broken → proceed.

Phase 1: Evidence Collection

Gather hard evidence from four sources:

1a. Config backups timeline

# See binding/setting counts over time
ssh "<remote-host>" "python3 << 'EOF'
import json, glob, os
for f in sorted(glob.glob('~/.openclaw/config-backups/openclaw-*.json'), key=os.path.getmtime):
    d = json.load(open(f))
    import datetime
    dt = datetime.datetime.fromtimestamp(os.path.getmtime(f)).strftime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M')
    # Customize: bindings, agents, channels, etc.
    count = len(d.get('bindings', []))
    ids = [b.get('agentId') for b in d.get('bindings', [])]
    print(f'{dt} [{count}] {ids}')
EOF"

1b. Git audit trail

ssh "<remote-host>" "cd ~/.openclaw && git log --oneline -20"
ssh "<remote-host>" "cd ~/.openclaw && git diff <commit-a> <commit-b> -- openclaw.json | grep '^[+-]' | grep -v '^---\|^+++'"

1c. Session logs (who did what)

# Find sessions that touched the broken config key
ssh "<remote-host>" "rg -rl 'keyword' ~/.openclaw/agents/*/sessions/*.jsonl | head -5"

# Extract tool calls from a session
ssh "<remote-host>" "python3 << 'EOF'
import json
for line in open('SESSION.jsonl'):
    obj = json.loads(line)
    if obj.get('type') != 'message': continue
    for block in obj.get('message',{}).get('content',[]):
        if block.get('type') == 'toolCall' and block.get('name') in ['Write','Edit','gateway','exec']:
            print(obj['timestamp'], block['name'], str(block.get('input',''))[:200])
EOF"

1d. Config backup diff (find the exact moment of change)

# Compare before/after a suspicious backup
python3 -c "
import json
a = json.load(open('backup-before.json'))
b = json.load(open('backup-after.json'))
# Compare specific field
print('Before:', a.get('bindings'))
print('After:', b.get('bindings'))
"

Stop and document: Who changed what, when, which session, which tool call.

Phase 2: 5 Whys Analysis

Write each "why" as a statement of fact backed by evidence from Phase 1.

Why 1: [Symptom] — e.g. "Bindings dropped from 17 to 1"
  Evidence: backup timestamp + count

Why 2: [Immediate cause] — e.g. "A full config replacement was written at 09:38 PST"
  Evidence: backup mtime + content diff

Why 3: [Mechanism] — e.g. "the agent wrote a new config from scratch, not from current config"
  Evidence: session log tool call + content

Why 4: [System gap] — e.g. "config-validate.sh --merge had no guard against binding count drops"
  Evidence: script inspection showing no such check

Why 5: [Root cause] — e.g. "No automated detection existed between when the config was written and the next user report"
  Evidence: no monitoring cron, no git at the time

Rule: Every "why" must cite a specific file, log entry, timestamp, or command output. No assumptions.

Phase 3: Restore

Restore to last known-good state using backup timeline from Phase 1.

# Restore specific fields (always merge, never replace)
PATCH=$(python3 -c "
import json
good = json.load(open('/path/to/good-backup.json'))
patch = {'bindings': good['bindings']}  # customize field
print(json.dumps(patch))
")
echo "$PATCH" | ssh "<remote-host>" "~/.openclaw/scripts/config-validate.sh --merge"

# Restart gateway
ssh "<remote-host>" "launchctl stop ai.openclaw.gateway && sleep 2 && launchctl start ai.openclaw.gateway"
ssh "<remote-host>" "launchctl list | grep ai.openclaw.gateway"  # verify exit code 0

Verify restore: Check that the restored value matches the good backup. Re-run the user's original failing action.

Phase 4: Prevention

Add guards proportional to the severity and recurrence risk. See references/prevention-patterns.md for full patterns. Quick reference:

For config fields that must not decrease:

Add guard to config-validate.sh --merge (see references for template)

For agent behavior rules:

Add to ~/.openclaw/agents//agent/SOUL.md as a Hard Rule (HR-NNN)

For recurring mistakes:

Add to ~/.openclaw/learnings/rules.md with category and date

For schema validation gaps:

Update config-validate.sh valid_keys list after verifying against DeepWiki

Always commit prevention changes to git:

ssh "<remote-host>" "cd ~/.openclaw && git add -A && git commit -m 'prevention: <what was added> after <incident>'"

Phase 5: Monitor

Set a recurring cron job that runs until user confirms "good enough" (minimum 7 days, 30 days for recurring incidents).

Cron job structure:
- Schedule: every 24h (or every N hours for high-severity)
- Task: check specific metric → compare to baseline → if degraded: restore + 5-why → report
- Report channel: sessions_send to your preferred channel (Signal, Telegram, Discord)
- Auto-escalate: if same fix needed 3+ days in a row → upgrade prevention measure
- Termination: user explicitly says "stop monitoring" or N days without incident

See references/cron-template.md for the full cron job prompt template.

Phase 6: Document

Write to ~/.openclaw/learnings/rules.md if a Hard Rule should be added:

• Category: HR (Hard Rule, recurring) or SR (Soft Rule, first offense)
• Include: what triggered, what the rule is, date learned, why it matters

Update MEMORY.md with incident summary if it's systemic.

Configuration

No persistent configuration required. Adapt the following to your environment:

See references/cron-template.md for full cron report configuration.

Quick Diagnosis Checklists

See references/checklists.md for:

• Gateway crash checklist
• Binding loss checklist
• Config key disappeared checklist
• Agent routing wrong checklist
• Vector search not finding content checklist