ClawKit Logo
ClawKitReliability Toolkit
Back to Registry
Official Verified

openclaw-guardian

A security layer plugin for OpenClaw that intercepts dangerous tool calls (exec, write, edit) through two-tier regex blacklist rules and LLM-based intent verification. Critical operations require 3/3 unanimous LLM votes, warning-level operations require 1 LLM confirmation. 99% of normal operations pass instantly with zero overhead. Includes bypass/pipe-attack detection, path canonicalization, SHA-256 hash-chain audit logging, and auto-discovers a cheap model from your existing provider config.

skill-install — Terminal

Install via CLI (Recommended)

clawhub install openclaw/skills/skills/fatcatmaofei/openclaw-guardian
Or

OpenClaw Guardian

The missing safety layer for AI agents.

Why?

OpenClaw gives agents direct access to shell, files, email, browser, and more. 99% of that is harmless. Guardian catches the 1% that isn't — without slowing down the rest.

How It Works

Tool Call → Blacklist Matcher (regex rules, 0ms)
              ↓
   No match     → Pass instantly (99% of calls)
   Warning hit  → 1 LLM vote ("did the user ask for this?")
   Critical hit → 3 LLM votes (all must confirm user intent)

Two Blacklist Levels

LevelLLM VotesLatencyExamples
No match0~0msReading files, git, normal ops
Warning1~1-2srm -rf /tmp/cache, chmod 777, sudo apt
Critical3 (unanimous)~2-4srm -rf ~/, mkfs, dd of=/dev/, shutdown

What Gets Checked

Only three tool types are inspected:

  • exec → command string matched against exec blacklist
  • write / edit → file path canonicalized and matched against path blacklist
  • Everything else passes through instantly

LLM Intent Verification

When a blacklist rule matches, Guardian asks a lightweight LLM: "Did the user explicitly request this?" It reads recent conversation context to prevent false positives.

  • Warning: 1 LLM call. Confirmed → proceed.
  • Critical: 3 parallel LLM calls. All 3 must confirm. Any "no" → block.

Auto-discovers a cheap/fast model from your existing OpenClaw provider config (prefers Haiku). No separate API key needed.

LLM Fallback

  • Critical + LLM down → blocked (fail-safe)
  • Warning + LLM down → asks user for manual confirmation

Blacklist Rules

Critical (exec)

  • rm -rf on system paths (excludes /tmp/ and workspace)
  • mkfs, dd to block devices, redirects to /dev/sd*
  • Writes to /etc/passwd, /etc/shadow, /etc/sudoers
  • shutdown, reboot, disable SSH
  • Bypass: eval, absolute-path rm, interpreter-based (python -c, node -e)
  • Pipe attacks: curl | sh, wget | bash, base64 -d | sh
  • Chain attacks: download + chmod +x + execute

Warning (exec)

  • rm -rf on safe paths, sudo, chmod 777, chown root
  • Package install/remove, service management
  • Crontab mods, SSH/SCP, Docker ops, kill/killall

Path Rules (write/edit)

  • Critical: system auth files, SSH keys, systemd units
  • Warning: dotfiles, /etc/ configs, .env files, authorized_keys

Audit Log

Every blacklist hit logged to ~/.openclaw/guardian-audit.jsonl with SHA-256 hash chain — tamper-evident, each entry covers full content + previous hash.

Installation

openclaw plugins install openclaw-guardian

Or manually:

cd ~/.openclaw/workspace
git clone https://github.com/fatcatMaoFei/openclaw-guardian.git

Token Cost

Scenario% of OpsExtra Cost
No match~99%0
Warning~0.5-1%~500 tokens
Critical<0.5%~1500 tokens

Metadata

Stars2387
Views1
Updated2026-03-09
View Author Profile
AI Skill Finder

Not sure this is the right skill?

Describe what you want to build — we'll match you to the best skill from 16,000+ options.

Find the right skill
Add to Configuration

Paste this into your clawhub.json to enable this plugin.

{
  "plugins": {
    "official-fatcatmaofei-openclaw-guardian": {
      "enabled": true,
      "auto_update": true
    }
  }
}
Safety NoteClawKit audits metadata but not runtime behavior. Use with caution.