Openclaw Deployment Hardening

---
name: openclaw-deployment-hardening
description: Secure OpenClaw deployments with preflight hardening checks, CI/CD guardrails,
  container runtime restrictions, and post-deploy verification.
category: security
risk: critical
source: https://github.com/BagelHole/DevOps-Security-Agent-Skills
source_repo: BagelHole/DevOps-Security-Agent-Skills
source_type: community
date_added: '2026-09-20'
license: MIT
license_source: https://github.com/BagelHole/DevOps-Security-Agent-Skills/blob/main/LICENSE
compatibility: Requires the relevant security tooling (scanners, vault CLIs) and an
  authorized scope for any active assessment. Docs-only; helper scripts and templates
  not bundled.
metadata:
  author: devops-skills
  version: '1.0'
---

# OpenClaw Deployment Hardening

Use this skill to add repeatable security gates around OpenClaw build and deployment workflows.

## Enforce a Secure Build Pipeline

Add mandatory controls to CI before artifacts are promoted:

1. Dependency and lockfile vulnerability scan (fail on critical CVEs).
2. Image scan for OS/package vulnerabilities.
3. Secret scanning across source and build context.
4. SBOM generation and artifact signing.
5. Policy check that blocks deploy when controls fail.

Example CI step order:

```bash
# Build
npm ci
npm run build

# Security gates
trivy fs .
trivy image my-registry/openclaw:${GIT_SHA}
syft my-registry/openclaw:${GIT_SHA} -o spdx-json > sbom.json
cosign sign --key cosign.key my-registry/openclaw:${GIT_SHA}
```

## Lock Down Container Runtime

Run OpenClaw with restrictive defaults:

- Non-root user in container
- Read-only root filesystem where possible
- Drop all Linux capabilities, add back only required
- `no-new-privileges` enabled
- Constrained CPU/memory limits to reduce abuse impact
- Seccomp/AppArmor (or equivalent) profile enforced

Kubernetes-oriented expectations:

- `runAsNonRoot: true`
- `allowPrivilegeEscalation: false`
- `readOnlyRootFilesystem: true`
- network policy deny-all baseline with explicit allow rules

## Gate Production Promotion

Require explicit promotion checks:

- Security sign-off on CVE exceptions.
- Signed artifact verification in deployment stage.
- Drift check between expected and live manifest values.
- Deployment only from immutable tags or digests.

Avoid mutable `latest` tags for production OpenClaw services.

## Protect Data and Session Surfaces

- Minimize prompt/response retention by policy.
- Mask secrets and PII in logs before shipping to SIEM.
- Encrypt persistent volumes and backups.
- Isolate tenant/session data boundaries when serving multiple teams.

## Post-Deploy Verification

Run a hardening smoke test immediately after rollout:

```bash
kubectl get pods -n openclaw
kubectl auth can-i --as=system:serviceaccount:openclaw:default list secrets -n openclaw
kubectl get networkpolicy -n openclaw
kubectl logs deploy/openclaw -n openclaw --tail=200
```

Verify:

- Pod security context matches policy.
- Service account permissions are least privilege.
- Ingress auth/rate limits are effective.
- No plaintext secrets appear in logs.

## Incident-Ready Rollback Pattern

Maintain a hardened rollback workflow:

1. Freeze further rollouts.
2. Revoke suspect tokens and rotate secrets.
3. Roll back to last signed known-good image digest.
4. Re-run post-deploy hardening verification.
5. Capture timeline and artifacts for forensics.

## Related Skills

- container-hardening (`container-hardening`) - Container security baseline controls
- kubernetes-hardening (`kubernetes-hardening`) - Pod and cluster hardening patterns
- sbom-supply-chain (`sbom-supply-chain`) - SBOM, signing, and provenance controls

## When to Use

- You need the security workflow covered by this skill (secrets, scanning, network defense, operations, AI security) inside an authorized scope.

## Limitations

- Apply guidance only within authorized scope; test destructive steps in non-production first.
- Docs-only import: upstream scripts and templates not bundled.

### Example

```bash
# Read-only first: inventory before any active step.
which <tool> && <tool> --help | head -n 20
```

> Adapted from [BagelHole/DevOps-Security-Agent-Skills](https://github.com/BagelHole/DevOps-Security-Agent-Skills) (MIT); frontmatter, When to Use/Limitations, and safety boundaries added for upstream compliance. Docs-only import: helper scripts and templates not bundled.