Skip to content

Auto Updater — OpenClaw Self-Updating

Publisher: teylersf | Installs: 1,148 | Category: DevOps

Automatically keeps your OpenClaw installation and all installed skills up to date. Checks for new versions on a configurable schedule, downloads updates, and applies them — all without manual intervention.

Prerequisites

  • OpenClaw installed and running
  • Node.js 18+
  • Git installed (for pulling skill updates)
  • npx available

Installation

npx skills add teylersf/openclaw-auto-updater/auto-updater

Configuration

{
  "autoUpdater": {
    "schedule": "0 4 * * *",
    "channels": {
      "openclaw": "stable",
      "skills": "latest"
    },
    "notifyOnUpdate": true,
    "backupBeforeUpdate": true,
    "autoRestart": true,
    "maxRetries": 3
  }
}
Setting Default Description
schedule 0 4 * * * Cron expression — when to check for updates
channels.openclaw stable Release channel: stable, beta, or canary
channels.skills latest Skill update channel: latest or pinned
notifyOnUpdate true Log/notify when updates are found and applied
backupBeforeUpdate true Backup config before applying updates
autoRestart true Restart agent after updates complete
maxRetries 3 Retry failed updates before alerting

Capabilities

Automatic OpenClaw Updates

  • Checks GitHub releases for new OpenClaw versions
  • Downloads and verifies release artifacts
  • Applies updates during low-activity windows
  • Validates checksums before installation

Skill Updates

  • Scans all installed skills for newer versions
  • Pulls latest from skills.sh or GitHub
  • Handles dependency conflicts
  • Runs skill-specific migration scripts

Safety Features

  • Pre-update backups of config files
  • Rollback on failed updates
  • Notification of breaking changes
  • Dry-run mode for testing

CLI Reference

Command                        Description
─────────────────────────────────────────────────
auto-updater check             Check for available updates
auto-updater apply             Apply pending updates
auto-updater status            Show current versions
auto-updater rollback          Revert last update
auto-updater dry-run           Preview updates without applying
auto-updater schedule          Show/change update schedule

CorpusIQ Use Cases

  • Long-running production agents: Zero-touch maintenance for agents running 24/7 on DGX/Mac Mini
  • Multi-agent deployments: Keep all worker agents at the same version across nodes
  • Cron-based agents: Ensure nightly-scheduled agents always run the latest code
  • Security patching: Automatic application of security fixes as they're released

Troubleshooting

Update fails to apply

# Check current version
auto-updater status

# Run in verbose mode
auto-updater check --verbose

# Try dry-run first
auto-updater dry-run

Skill update conflicts

# List affected skills
auto-updater check --skills-only

# Update one at a time
auto-updater apply --skill-by-skill

# Force reinstall problematic skill
npx skills remove <skill> && npx skills add <skill>

Agent won't restart after update

# Check backup was created
ls -la ~/.openclaw/backups/

# Restore from backup
auto-updater rollback

# Check logs for specific failure
tail -100 ~/.openclaw/logs/update.log

Auto Updater Setup Guide | Discovery Page

Skills Catalog


Part of the Hermes Skills Library — curated by CorpusIQ. Content remains attributed to original authors and repositories. CorpusIQ — one MCP endpoint, all your business tools.