Skill Scanner Guard

Harden OpenClaw’s skill supply chain:

• Scan skills with cisco-ai-defense/skill-scanner
• Block only on High/Critical
• Allow Medium/Low/Info but warn
• Auto-scan on changes to ~/.openclaw/skills
• Quarantine failing skills to ~/.openclaw/skills-quarantine

Quick start

Install skill-scanner (repo + uv env)

cd "$HOME/.openclaw/workspace"
# or wherever you keep repos

git clone https://github.com/cisco-ai-defense/skill-scanner
cd skill-scanner
CC=gcc uv sync --all-extras

Note: some environments try gcc-12 while building yara-python; forcing CC=gcc avoids that.

Workflows

1) Scan all user skills (manual)

User skills live at:

• ~/.openclaw/skills

Run:

$HOME/.openclaw/skills/skill-scanner-guard/scripts/scan_openclaw_skills.sh

Outputs go to:

• /home/rev/.openclaw/workspace/skill_scans/

2) Install a folder skill with scan gate (copy/clone workflow)

Use the wrapper instead of copying directly:

$HOME/.openclaw/skills/skill-scanner-guard/scripts/scan_and_add_skill.sh /path/to/skill-dir

Policy:

• Block only if High/Critical exist (unless --force)
• Still installs if only Medium/Low/Info exist, but prints a warning summary

3) Install from ClawHub with scan gate (staging install)

Install to a staging dir, scan, then copy into ~/.openclaw/skills only if allowed:

$HOME/.openclaw/skills/skill-scanner-guard/scripts/clawhub_scan_install.sh <slug>
# optionally
$HOME/.openclaw/skills/skill-scanner-guard/scripts/clawhub_scan_install.sh <slug> --version <version>

4) Auto-scan + quarantine on change (systemd user units)

Install the units (templates are in references/):

mkdir -p ~/.config/systemd/user
cp -a "$HOME/.openclaw/skills/skill-scanner-guard/references/openclaw-skill-scan."* ~/.config/systemd/user/

systemctl --user daemon-reload
systemctl --user enable --now openclaw-skill-scan.path

Behavior:

• Any change under ~/.openclaw/skills/ triggers scripts/auto_scan_user_skills.sh
• If High/Critical findings exist, the script moves failing skill directories to:

~/.openclaw/skills-quarantine/-

• Reports are written to:

/home/rev/.openclaw/workspace/skill_scans/auto/

Inspect:

systemctl --user status openclaw-skill-scan.path
journalctl --user -u openclaw-skill-scan.service -n 100 --no-pager
ls -la ~/.openclaw/skills-quarantine

Bundled resources

scripts/

• scan_openclaw_skills.sh: generate markdown reports for user + bundled skills
• scan_and_add_skill.sh: scan candidate folder skill; install only if allowed
• clawhub_scan_install.sh: stage-install from ClawHub, scan, then install
• auto_scan_user_skills.sh: scan-all on ~/.openclaw/skills changes; quarantine High/Critical failures

references/

• openclaw-skill-scan.path / openclaw-skill-scan.service: systemd --user path trigger units