Auto-Watchdog 🐕

Your OpenClaw setup runs 24/7. But what watches the watchers?

Auto-Watchdog monitors everything and fixes what it can — silently. You only hear about real problems.

Features

1. Cron Health Monitor

Checks all cron jobs every heartbeat:

• consecutiveErrors > 0 → immediate alert
• Job not running when expected → alert
• Disabled jobs piling up → cleanup recommendation

2. Process Guardian

Monitors critical processes by log freshness (not just PID):

• Log file not updated in X minutes → kill + restart
• Works with any Node.js process
• Configurable per-process thresholds

3. Disk Monitor

• Log files growing too large → auto-rotate
• Workspace size alerts
• Temp file cleanup

4. Gateway Health

• Checks openclaw gateway status every heartbeat
• Auto-restart if down (via Task Scheduler or systemd)

5. Silent by Default

• Everything OK → no output (HEARTBEAT_OK)
• Issue found → targeted alert to your chat
• No spam. No unnecessary reports.

Setup

Add to HEARTBEAT.md:

## 🔍 Health Check (silent = good)

### Crons
- `cron list` → check consecutiveErrors > 0 → alert
- Frequent crons not running >2 hours → alert

### Processes
- Check [your process] log freshness < [X] minutes
- If stale → restart and alert

### Gateway
- `openclaw gateway status` → alert if down

### Disk
- Check log sizes > 10MB → rotate
- Check workspace size > 1GB → alert

For Windows (Task Scheduler Guardian):

Create a VBS wrapper for zero-flash execution:

' guardian-silent.vbs — zero flash process monitor
Set oShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
oShell.Run "powershell.exe -NonInteractive -WindowStyle Hidden -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File ""C:\path\to\guardian.ps1""", 0, True

Register as Task Scheduler job running every 1-5 minutes.

For Linux (systemd):

# /etc/systemd/system/openclaw-watchdog.service
[Service]
ExecStart=/usr/bin/node /path/to/guardian.js
Restart=always
RestartSec=60

Philosophy

Monitor by output freshness, not PID. A process can be "alive" but stuck. Check its log timestamp.

Fix first, alert second. If you can restart it automatically, do it. Only alert for things that need human intervention.

Silent = healthy. No news is good news. Only speak up when something breaks.

Production-Tested

Built for a 24/7 autonomous trading system with:

• 5 competing AI agents
• 20+ cron jobs
• Strategy researcher running 23h/day
• Zero downtime over weeks of operation