sentinel

The sentinel plugin provides declarative endpoint monitoring for OpenClaw agents. Define watchers that poll HTTP endpoints, listen to WebSocket/SSE streams, or call EVM smart contracts — and fire callbacks when conditions are met.

For full upstream documentation, see coffeexcoin/openclaw-sentinel.

How it works

1. Define a watcher with an endpoint, polling strategy, and conditions.
2. Sentinel evaluates JSONPath conditions against each response.
3. When conditions match, sentinel fires a webhook to the OpenClaw gateway, which routes it to a callback session.
4. The callback session receives the event with matched data and can execute actions via sentinel_act or escalate via sentinel_escalate.

Strategies

Strategy	Description
http-poll	Periodic HTTP GET/POST polling
websocket	Persistent WebSocket connection
sse	Server-Sent Events stream
http-long-poll	HTTP long-polling
evm-call	EVM eth_call against a smart contract

Configuration

Configure in openclaw.json under plugins.sentinel:

Field	Type	Default	Description
allowedHosts	string[]	[]	Hostnames watchers can connect to (required)
localDispatchBase	string	http://127.0.0.1:18789	Base URL for webhook dispatch
dispatchAuthToken	string	(auto-detected)	Bearer token for dispatch auth
hookSessionPrefix	string	agent:main:hooks:sentinel	Base prefix for callback sessions
hookSessionGroup	string	—	Default session group for callbacks
hookRelayDedupeWindowMs	integer	120000	Dedupe window for relay messages
stateFilePath	string	(default)	Custom state persistence path
notificationPayloadMode	none | concise | debug	concise	Delivery target notification verbosity
maxOperatorGoalChars	integer	12000	Max chars for fire.operatorGoal
hookResponseTimeoutMs	integer	30000	Timeout for assistant hook response
hookResponseFallbackMode	none | concise	concise	Fallback on hook response timeout
hookResponseDedupeWindowMs	integer	120000	Hook response delivery dedupe window

Limits

Nested under limits:

Field	Default	Description
maxWatchersTotal	200	Max watchers across all skills
maxWatchersPerSkill	20	Max watchers per skill
maxConditionsPerWatcher	25	Max conditions per watcher
maxIntervalMsFloor	1000	Minimum polling interval (ms)

Tools

Sentinel provides three tools:

• sentinel_control — Create, enable, disable, remove, and inspect watchers
• sentinel_act — Execute actions in response to callbacks (run commands, send notifications)
• sentinel_escalate — Escalate situations that need human attention

Next steps

• Quick Start — Create your first watcher