openclaw backup CLI Reference: Archives, SQLite, Git

openclaw backup

A local backup archive can be generated for OpenClaw state, configuration, auth profiles, channel and provider credentials, sessions, and optionally workspaces.

openclaw backup create
openclaw backup create --output ~/Backups
openclaw backup create --dry-run --json
openclaw backup create --verify
openclaw backup create --no-include-workspace
openclaw backup create --only-config
openclaw backup verify ./2026-03-09T08-00-00.000+08-00-openclaw-backup.tar.gz
openclaw backup restore ./2026-03-09T08-00-00.000+08-00-openclaw-backup.tar.gz --target ./restored-openclaw
openclaw backup sqlite create --global --repository ~/Backups/openclaw-sqlite
openclaw backup sqlite create --agent main --repository ~/Backups/openclaw-sqlite
openclaw backup sqlite list --repository ~/Backups/openclaw-sqlite
openclaw backup sqlite verify ~/Backups/openclaw-sqlite/<snapshot-id>
openclaw backup sqlite verify ~/Backups/openclaw-sqlite/<snapshot-id> --scratch ~/Private/openclaw-scratch
openclaw backup sqlite restore ~/Backups/openclaw-sqlite/<snapshot-id> --target ./restored/openclaw.sqlite
openclaw backup git init --repository ~/Backups/openclaw-git --remote <private-git-url>
openclaw backup git create --repository ~/Backups/openclaw-git --all --push
openclaw backup git log --repository ~/Backups/openclaw-git
openclaw backup git verify --repository ~/Backups/openclaw-git --global
openclaw backup git restore --repository ~/Backups/openclaw-git --agent main --target ./restored/agent.sqlite
openclaw backup enable --repository ~/Backups/openclaw-git --every 24h --push
openclaw backup disable

The archive includes create, verify, and restore, along with SQLite databases create, list, verify, and restore. The --json flag produces a single machine-readable result on stdout.

Notes

• A schema-version-1 manifest.json is embedded in the archive, holding the resolved source paths and the archive layout. Additive ownership metadata records configured agent ids and roots, including agent roots already covered by another asset; existing archive layout and older archives remain supported.
• By default, the output is a timestamped .tar.gz archive placed in the current working directory. Timestamped filenames reflect your machine's local timezone and include the UTC offset. When the current working directory falls inside a backed-up source tree, OpenClaw defaults the archive location to your home directory instead.
• Existing archive files are never overwritten. Output paths within the source state or workspace trees are rejected to prevent self-inclusion.
• openclaw backup verify <archive> verifies that the archive holds exactly one root manifest, rejects traversal-style archive paths, unsafe symbolic links, and SQLite sidecars, confirms every manifest-declared payload exists, validates each SQLite snapshot's file shape, and runs full integrity and role checks on canonical OpenClaw databases. Dedicated plugin schemas remain opaque because they may require owner-defined SQLite capabilities. openclaw backup create --verify executes that validation immediately after the archive is written.
• openclaw backup create --only-config archives only the active JSON config file.

Restore a full archive

A complete archive can be restored into a fresh staging directory without affecting the live state directory:

openclaw backup restore <archive.tar.gz> --target <fresh-directory>

The target must not exist or must be an empty directory, and it cannot be inside the live state directory or any configured live agent directory. Before creating or writing the target, restore verifies the archive and its SQLite databases, refuses a non-empty target, and removes an incomplete extraction if anything fails. It never restores in place and has no --force mode. The extracted layout retains the archive root, manifest, and payload/ paths exactly as recorded in the archive.

Warning

Restoring an archive is time travel. Messaging-channel credentials with ratchet state, especially WhatsApp, may desynchronize after rollback and need relinking. Approvals and delivery/dedupe state also roll back, so review pending approvals before resuming the Gateway. Plugin node_modules trees are not archived; after activation, run openclaw plugins update <id> or reinstall with openclaw plugins install <spec> --force. The generated plugin-skills/ symlink index is also omitted; run openclaw skills list or start an agent session after activation to rebuild it from plugin metadata.

Activation is a separate offline operator step. Stop the Gateway, move the restored state asset into place or point OPENCLAW_STATE_DIR at that asset, then run openclaw doctor before restarting. Use manifest.json as the source of truth for the state, config, credentials, workspace, and configured agent paths. Restore custom agent roots to the locations configured by agentDir, or update those settings to their new locations before restarting. See Restore a full archive for the full disaster-recovery sequence.

SQLite snapshots

When a portable artifact for a single OpenClaw-owned SQLite database is needed instead of a broad state archive, openclaw backup sqlite is the tool to use.

Snapshot creation accepts exactly one named source. Agent sources always use the current configuration's resolved <agentDir>/openclaw-agent.sqlite, even when agentDir is outside the state directory:

The repository contains one directory per committed snapshot. Each snapshot directory contains exactly:

• manifest.json
• database.sqlite

Snapshot creation verifies the live database before reading it, uses SQLite's online backup API to capture committed WAL state without holding one long read transaction, closes the live database, compacts the private copy with VACUUM, verifies the generated database again, and publishes the completed directory without overwriting existing paths. Global snapshots remove every delivery queue row before compaction, including pending work, failed ownership fences, and completion or idempotency receipts, so neither payload detail nor ownership tombstones are published or retained in free pages. Restoring this sanitized, portable snapshot is therefore not an exactly-once delivery continuation boundary. This is an intentional privacy and no-replay portability tradeoff.

Do not copy live .sqlite, -wal, -shm, or -journal files as a portability artifact. Copy only completed snapshot directories.

SQLite snapshots can contain auth profiles, session state, plugin state, and other sensitive records. Protect repositories with the same permissions, encryption, retention policy, and destination restrictions as the live OpenClaw state directory.

Verify and restore

openclaw backup sqlite verify <snapshot-directory>
openclaw backup sqlite restore <snapshot-directory> --target <new-database-path>

Verification checks the strict manifest shape, artifact size and SHA-256, SQLite integrity, foreign keys, schema version, database role and owner, and OpenClaw-owned index definitions.

Verification validates a private content-pinned copy so pathname races cannot swap the bytes SQLite inspects. By default, that temporary copy is created beside the snapshot repository and removed before the command returns. The staging root and its ancestor chain must prevent other users from replacing it. POSIX roots must be current-user-owned and not group/world writable; sticky ancestors such as /tmp are accepted for user-owned children. macOS ACL grants that expose or make staging replaceable are rejected. Windows roots and ancestors must be owned by the current user or a trusted OS principal, with ACLs that deny untrusted staging access. For a read-only mount or network share, pass --scratch <existing-private-directory> on storage with equivalent encryption and destination controls.

Snapshot creation applies the same owner, ACL, ancestor, and path-identity checks to the repository before staging or publishing database bytes. Newly created directory edges and final publication metadata are synchronized through the shared fs-safe durability boundary before success is reported on supported filesystems.

Restore repeats verification and writes only to a fresh target. It refuses an existing target, -wal, -shm, or -journal sidecar and never performs an in-place replacement of a live OpenClaw database. The target parent has the same path-security requirements as verification scratch. Activating a restored database remains an explicit offline operator step.

Snapshot repositories are local directories. Scheduling, upload, retention, incremental WAL bundles, failover, and restore-on-boot behavior are intentionally outside this command.

Versioned Git backups

openclaw backup git stores deterministic, per-table JSONL dumps in a plain Git repository owned by the operator. One repository can hold the shared database and every per-agent database:

global/manifest.json
global/schema.sql
global/tables/<table>.jsonl
agents/<agentId>/manifest.json
agents/<agentId>/schema.sql
agents/<agentId>/tables/<table>.jsonl

Initialize the repository, then create a snapshot of the shared database and all configured agent databases:

openclaw backup git init --repository ~/Backups/openclaw-git --remote <private-git-url>
openclaw backup git create --repository ~/Backups/openclaw-git --all --push

The repository root must be owned by the current user and must not be group- or world-writable. OpenClaw checks this when initializing or adopting a repository and before every create. On POSIX systems, repair unsafe permissions with chmod 700 <repository> after confirming its ownership.

The repository must be used exclusively for OpenClaw backups. A pre-existing global/ or agents/<agentId>/ scope counts as backup-owned only if it is empty or holds a valid schema-version-1 manifest.json. OpenClaw will not overwrite any other scope. When --all is active, every existing entry under agents/ is checked before stale backup-owned agent scopes are removed, so an unowned entry halts the cleanup before any deletion occurs.

Alternatively, you can choose --global, repeat --agent <id>, or merge the shared database with specific agents. Explicit agent choices, --all, and scheduled backups pull each database from its designated agentDir; historical artifact verification and restore rely on the artifact's recorded agent id and do not require that agent to stay in the current setup. Snapshot generation applies the same online backup, sanitizer, VACUUM, owner validation, and integrity checks as backup sqlite create; it never accesses live SQLite files directly. Rows and schema entries follow a deterministic order, and integers and blobs use lossless encodings. The command produces a single commit named openclaw backup <ISO8601>. If the database content remains unchanged, it outputs no changes and skips creating a commit.

Git staging touches only the backup-owned global and agents paths; unrelated files elsewhere in an adopted repository are never staged.

--push sends the current branch to origin. If the local commit succeeds but the push fails, that is treated as a warning, and the local backup is neither discarded nor flagged as failed.

Warning

Git history persists permanently. Without --exclude-secrets, snapshots contain credential material, so any pushed remote must be private.

src/state/secret-state-tables.ts defines what gets redacted. At this revision, --exclude-secrets excludes these shared-state tables:

• audit_identity_keys
• apns_registrations
• channel_ingress_events
• channel_pairing_requests
• clawhub_promotion_claims
• config_revision_keys
• device_auth_tokens
• device_bootstrap_tokens
• device_identities
• device_pairing_join_codes
• device_pairing_paired
• gateway_origin_device_tokens
• mcp_oauth_pending_authorizations
• mcp_oauth_stores
• native_hook_relay_bridges
• secret_store_entries
• web_push_subscriptions
• worker_environment_credentials

It also drops config_machine_state rows where keys start with authProfiles., nodeHost., or webPush.vapidKeys, while keeping other machine-state rows.

These per-agent tables are omitted:

• auth_profile_state
• auth_profile_store
• session_suggestions

The backup manifest records omitted tables in excludedTables and omitted machine-state prefixes in excludedConfigStateKeyPrefixes. Restore reports omitted tables and machine-state prefixes so a redacted snapshot cannot be mistaken for a complete credential backup.

Examine or verify history without altering the live databases:

openclaw backup git log --repository ~/Backups/openclaw-git --limit 20
openclaw backup git verify --repository ~/Backups/openclaw-git --ref <commit> --global
openclaw backup git verify --repository ~/Backups/openclaw-git --ref <commit> --agent main

Verification unpacks the chosen snapshot into private scratch space, verifies each table's row count and SHA-256, executes PRAGMA integrity_check and PRAGMA foreign_key_check, and deletes the scratch copy. Restore writes only to a fresh target and rejects existing -wal, -shm, and -journal sidecars:

openclaw backup git restore --repository ~/Backups/openclaw-git --ref <commit> --global --target ./restored/openclaw.sqlite

Restore rebuilds content-backed FTS5 indexes after their content tables are loaded. It intentionally leaves out the derived session_transcript_index_state projection so Gateway startup reconciliation regenerates transcript search. vec0 virtual tables are not materialized because the extension is missing in the restore process; memory indexing recreates them and queues a full reindex.

Schedule backups

Set up one Gateway-owned automation with a fixed name:

openclaw backup enable --repository ~/Backups/openclaw-git --every 24h --push

The default scope covers every database. To limit it, use --global-only or --agent <id>, and add --exclude-secrets for a redacted history. Pushed schedules (--push) redact credential-bearing tables and secret-prefixed machine-state rows by default because an unattended recurring push retains them durably in remote history; pass --include-secrets for explicit full-fidelity remote backups (restores from redacted history need device re-pairing and provider re-authentication). --push also requires the repository to already have an origin remote. Re-running backup enable updates the existing automation instead of creating a duplicate. openclaw backup disable removes it; disabling an already-missing job is a successful no-op. Backup scheduling currently requires a local Gateway because the command job runs on the Gateway host; for a remote Gateway, create the cron job manually with openclaw cron add.

Recorded runs and freshness

Every real archive, SQLite snapshot, and Git create attempt records a compact outcome in the existing shared state database. Dry runs are not recorded. The log retains the newest 200 attempts, so frequent schedules remain bounded.

openclaw status shows one Backups overview row, and openclaw status --json includes the latest attempt and latest successful run. openclaw doctor prints an informational hint when no successful backup is recorded or the newest successful backup is more than 14 days old. Recording is best-effort: a record-write failure prints a warning but never changes a successful backup into a failed command.

What gets backed up

openclaw backup create plans sources from your local OpenClaw install:

• The state directory (usually ~/.openclaw)
• The active config file path
• The resolved credentials/ directory when it exists outside the state directory
• Every configured agent directory, including custom agentDir roots outside the state directory
• Workspace directories discovered from the current config, unless you pass --no-include-workspace
• Durable resources declared by effectively activated, loadable plugin manifests

Auth profiles and other per-agent runtime state live in <agentDir>/openclaw-agent.sqlite. The default agent root is <stateDir>/agents/<agentId>/agent, but a custom root remains authoritative whether it is outside the state directory, inside a workspace, or nested under an otherwise regenerable managed state root. --no-include-workspace omits ordinary workspace sources, not configured agent directories.

--only-config skips state, agent, credentials-directory, workspace, and plugin-resource discovery and archives only the active config file path.

OpenClaw builds one immutable, configuration-derived ownership inventory before planning sources, SQLite snapshots, exclusions, results, and the embedded manifest. Paths are canonicalized: config, credentials, workspaces, and agents already covered by another included root are not duplicated as top-level sources. A custom agent root becomes a distinct agent asset only when no existing asset covers it; the manifest still records its agent id and root when another asset contains it. Missing paths are reported as skipped.

During archive creation, OpenClaw excludes known live-mutation paths before tar reads them. This avoids races between a file's recorded size and concurrent writes. The filter applies these state-relative rules under each backed-up state directory:

These rules do not filter workspace files outside the state directory. They also omit completed transcript and log files that match the table, so retain those records separately when needed. The JSON result's skippedVolatileCount reports intentionally omitted volatile entries; regenerable agent temporary roots are listed separately in skipped and are not included in that count.

Chromium singleton entries coordinate one running browser on one host and are recreated when that profile starts; the rest of the profile's user-data/ remains in the archive. Sandbox skills workspaces are generated copies of current skill sources and are materialized again when OpenClaw prepares the next sandbox context after restore; adjacent sandbox registry and other durable state remain included.

SQLite databases owned by the state directory or any configured agent directory are captured with SQLite's online backup API and compacted offline with VACUUM, including custom agent roots covered by a workspace or managed state asset. Committed WAL changes are included, deleted-page remnants and transient leases are removed, sidecars are omitted, and canonical OpenClaw databases must match their expected role and agent owner. Unsafe aliasing or an owner mismatch fails closed. A plugin-owned database that requires unavailable owner-defined SQLite capabilities also fails closed rather than falling back to a direct file copy. Other workspace SQLite files outside configured agent roots remain raw workspace files and do not receive the SQLite snapshot or compaction guarantee.

Installed plugin source and manifest files located under the state directory's extensions/ tree are part of the backup, though their nested node_modules/ dependency trees are treated as rebuildable install artifacts and therefore excluded. If a restored plugin indicates missing dependencies, run openclaw plugins update <id> or reinstall using openclaw plugins install <spec> --force after the archive has been restored.

The plugin-skills/ root within the state directory is a generated symlink index owned by OpenClaw, not authoritative state. Backup creation reports this root and leaves it out, since its absolute targets depend on the original installation. Once restored state is active, execute openclaw skills list or launch an agent session to reconstruct the links from current plugin metadata.

Temporary trees scoped to agents under agents/<agentId>/agent/**/{tmp,.tmp}/ are likewise excluded and reported as regenerable. This covers temporary files directly beneath an agent directory as well as temporary trees inside agent runtime homes; durable sibling directories stay included. An explicitly configured config file, credentials directory, or workspace nested below an omitted temporary root remains part of the backup.

Symbolic links are archived as link metadata and are never followed. Relative links are kept only when both the link and its lexical target stay within backup assets declared in manifest.json; links between declared assets and dangling links within an asset are permitted. Absolute links, links with backslashes, and links that escape the archive root or any declared asset are rejected during both creation and verification.

Installer-managed and rebuildable runtime roots under the state directory are also skipped: dev/, git/, npm/, legacy npm-runtime/, tmp/, and tools/. These hold managed checkouts, package trees, compiler caches, temporary files, and downloaded runtimes rather than authoritative user state; reinstall or update the relevant runtime or plugin after restore. Effectively activated, loadable plugins can declare additional durable or regenerable state- or agent-relative roots through backupResources. Disabled or unloadable plugins cannot exclude data. Explicit config, credentials, workspace, agent, and plugin-included paths override exclusions, and any excluded parent remains traversable to reach those protected descendants. Names such as tmp and .tmp are not blanket exclusions in custom agent directories; only an applicable owner declaration can omit their durable-looking siblings.

Local edits inside a managed dev/ checkout are developer source, not OpenClaw product state, and are not included. Commit and push those edits or copy the checkout separately before relying on a state backup.

Invalid config behavior

openclaw backup bypasses the normal config preflight so it can still help during recovery. Workspace discovery depends on a valid config, so openclaw backup create fails fast when the config file exists but is invalid and workspace backup is still enabled.

For a partial backup in that situation, rerun with --no-include-workspace: it keeps state, config, and the external credentials directory in scope without workspace discovery. Because malformed configuration also prevents resolving custom agent ownership and effectively activated plugin resources, the result records those unresolved scopes as skipped diagnostics; do not treat that recovery archive as a complete backup.

--only-config also works when the config is malformed, since it does not parse the config for workspace discovery.

Size and performance

OpenClaw does not enforce a built-in maximum backup size or per-file size limit. An archive write that produces no data for five minutes fails and removes its partial temporary file instead of hanging indefinitely. Practical limits otherwise come from:

• Available space for the temporary archive write plus the final archive
• Time to walk large workspace trees and compress them into a .tar.gz
• Time to rescan the archive with --verify or openclaw backup verify
• Destination filesystem behavior: OpenClaw requires no-overwrite hard-link publication so a final archive path never exposes an in-progress copy; unsupported filesystems fail with an actionable error

If final-directory durability confirmation fails after publication, the command reports failure but preserves the complete final entry rather than risk deleting a concurrent replacement.

Large workspaces are usually the main driver of archive size. Use --no-include-workspace for a smaller/faster backup, or --only-config for the smallest archive.

Related

• CLI reference
• Migrating an OpenClaw install
• Restore a full archive