feat(cli): launch OpenClaw through Relay by bbednarski9 · Pull Request #370 · NVIDIA/NeMo-Relay

bbednarski9 · 2026-07-06T23:00:43Z

Overview

This adds OpenClaw as a first-class Relay CLI launcher target. The wrapper routes supported provider traffic through Relay's managed LLM gateway and injects a temporary hook bridge, without modifying the user's source configuration or starting a second Relay runtime.

I confirm this contribution is my own work, or I have the right to submit it under this project's license.
I searched existing issues and open pull requests, and this does not duplicate existing work.

Details

Add openclaw to agent selection, command inference, setup detection, doctor output, and the easy-path CLI.
Launch local OpenClaw agent, TUI, and foreground gateway commands through a sibling temporary JSON5 overlay selected with OPENCLAW_CONFIG_PATH.
Inject a dependency-free OpenClaw bridge that forwards session, LLM-input, tool, and subagent hooks to the CLI gateway.
Keep the CLI as the single Relay runtime and plugin-host owner. If an embedded Relay plugin is installed, disable it only for the wrapped invocation.
Route API-key-backed Anthropic Messages, OpenAI Chat Completions, and OpenAI Responses providers through Relay while retaining each provider's original endpoint as the upstream destination.
Keep request mutation on Relay's managed LLM boundary. The bridge observes tool lifecycle hooks but does not claim around-execution or tool-result middleware semantics.
Leave custom, unsupported, non-HTTP, OAuth-only, and ambiguous-auth providers unchanged with an explicit passthrough diagnostic.
Preserve OpenClaw state and credentials, remove the temporary overlay and bridge on success, failure, and launcher shutdown, and never rewrite the source configuration.
Remove the obsolete .clawdbot configuration fallback.

Where should the reviewer start?

Start with crates/cli/src/openclaw.rs for provider/auth resolution and temporary bridge construction, crates/cli/src/adapters/openclaw.rs for hook normalization, and crates/cli/src/launcher.rs for child-process shutdown and cleanup. Focused coverage is in crates/cli/tests/coverage/openclaw_tests.rs, adapters_tests.rs, and server_tests.rs.

Validation

cargo test -p nemo-relay-cli (689 unit and 50 integration tests passed)
cargo clippy -p nemo-relay-cli --all-targets -- -D warnings
Focused OpenClaw, adapter, server, and CLI-command tests passed after the final refactor.
Real OpenClaw 2026.6.11 smoke test:
- loaded the generated nemo-relay-cli-bridge without nemo-relay-node;
- forwarded all seven registered hook types to the CLI gateway;
- did not register tool-result middleware;
- shut down cleanly and removed both the temporary bridge directory and JSON5 overlay.
Provider-routing tests cover Anthropic Messages, OpenAI Chat Completions, OpenAI Responses, unsupported-provider passthrough, and original-upstream preservation.

Stack

Depends on feat(plugin): add owned dynamic host activation #364 and feat(node): activate dynamic plugins #366.

Related Issues: (use one of the action keywords Closes / Fixes / Resolves / Relates to)

Relates to #364 and #366.

Signed-off-by: Bryan Bednarski <bbednarski@nvidia.com>

github-actions · 2026-07-06T23:07:59Z

Fern docs preview: https://nvidia-preview-pull-request-370.docs.buildwithfern.com/nemo/relay (https://nvidia-preview-pull-request-370.docs.buildwithfern.com/nemo/relay)

willkill07

I know it's still in draft, but I wanted to make a couple of notes

willkill07 · 2026-07-06T23:02:18Z

    ClaudeCode,
    Codex,
    Hermes,
+    Openclaw,


Openclaw -> OpenClaw

willkill07 · 2026-07-06T23:04:08Z

+            "OpenClaw hook and tool telemetry is provided by the optional \
+             nemo-relay-openclaw npm plugin, not the Relay hook-forward endpoint"
+                .into(),


Is there any way we could get this to work? Having a multi-step process is suboptimal.

I also don't understand how nemo-relay-openclaw intends to communicate with the CLI process. Without that communication, there is not a single source of truth.

willkill07 · 2026-07-06T23:07:00Z

+    let legacy = home.join(".clawdbot").join("clawdbot.json");
+    if legacy.exists() {
+        return Ok(legacy);
+    }


Seems unnecessary six months into 2026

willkill07 · 2026-07-06T23:11:05Z

 | Claude Code | Yes | Yes | Partial | Hook forwarding, pre-tool blocking, and gateway-routed LLM observability are supported. |
 | Codex | Yes | Yes | Partial | Hook activation is required; missing session-end behavior limits trajectory finalization and full optimization coverage. |
 | Hermes Agent | Yes | Yes | Partial | Hook forwarding, pre-tool blocking, and gateway-routed or hook-backed LLM observability are supported. |
+| OpenClaw | Yes | Partial | Partial | Local or foreground API-key-backed Anthropic/OpenAI requests can be gateway-routed. Embedded hook/tool telemetry requires the separately installed OpenClaw plugin. |


The nemo-relay-openclaw plugin package is already limiting. Having two instances of Relay running is not ideal. We should consider a different integration method.

Signed-off-by: Bryan Bednarski <bbednarski@nvidia.com>

coderabbitai · 2026-07-07T00:33:26Z

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Signed-off-by: Bryan Bednarski <bbednarski@nvidia.com>

github-actions · 2026-07-07T14:34:50Z

License Diff

Compared against origin/main.

Lockfile license changes

Lockfile License Changes

Rust

Added

json5 0.4.1 (ISC)
pest 2.8.7 (Apache-2.0)
pest_derive 2.8.7 (Apache-2.0)
pest_generator 2.8.7 (Apache-2.0)
pest_meta 2.8.7 (Apache-2.0)
ucd-trie 0.1.7 (Apache-2.0)

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None

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None

Node

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None

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None

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None

Python

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Status output

[license-diff] selected languages: rust, node, python
[license-diff] generating current inventory
[license-diff] current: generating Rust inventory
[license-diff] current: Rust inventory complete (384 packages)
[license-diff] current: generating Node inventory
[license-diff] current: Node inventory complete (363 packages)
[license-diff] current: generating Python inventory
[license-diff] current: Python inventory complete (105 packages)
[license-diff] current inventory complete
[license-diff] checking out base ref origin/main into a temporary worktree
[license-diff] base: generating Rust inventory
[license-diff] base: Rust inventory complete (378 packages)
[license-diff] base: generating Node inventory
[license-diff] base: Node inventory complete (363 packages)
[license-diff] base: generating Python inventory
[license-diff] base: Python inventory complete (105 packages)
[license-diff] base inventory complete
[license-diff] removing temporary base worktree
[license-diff] comparing inventories
[license-diff] rendering Markdown output
[license-diff] done

Signed-off-by: Bryan Bednarski <bbednarski@nvidia.com>

bbednarski9 · 2026-07-08T15:04:19Z

closing this out in favor of a formal design doc for this integration to avoid scope creep

feat(plugin): add owned dynamic host activation

adafe09

Signed-off-by: Bryan Bednarski <bbednarski@nvidia.com>

copy-pr-bot Bot temporarily deployed to fern July 6, 2026 23:02 Inactive

github-actions Bot added size:XL PR is extra large Feature a new feature lang:js PR changes/introduces Javascript/Typescript code lang:rust PR changes/introduces Rust code labels Jul 6, 2026

willkill07 requested changes Jul 6, 2026

View reviewed changes

bbednarski9 added 2 commits July 6, 2026 17:57

fix(plugin): harden dynamic host teardown

530dec0

Signed-off-by: Bryan Bednarski <bbednarski@nvidia.com>

fix(plugin): preserve registry ownership

c73af54

Signed-off-by: Bryan Bednarski <bbednarski@nvidia.com>

bbednarski9 force-pushed the bbednarski/openclaw-cli-launcher branch from 6e8bf6e to 3a4ef58 Compare July 7, 2026 00:33

github-actions Bot added size:XXL PR is very large and removed size:XL PR is extra large labels Jul 7, 2026

copy-pr-bot Bot temporarily deployed to fern July 7, 2026 00:33 Inactive

bbednarski9 added 5 commits July 7, 2026 08:16

test(plugin): wait reliably for cancelled activation

b5d3bf8

Signed-off-by: Bryan Bednarski <bbednarski@nvidia.com>

feat(node): activate dynamic plugins

28d4c09

Signed-off-by: Bryan Bednarski <bbednarski@nvidia.com>

Fix Node dynamic plugin teardown lifecycle

bce713b

Signed-off-by: Bryan Bednarski <bbednarski@nvidia.com>

feat(cli): launch OpenClaw through Relay

64f8923

Signed-off-by: Bryan Bednarski <bbednarski@nvidia.com>

chore: refresh Rust attributions

0111d48

Signed-off-by: Bryan Bednarski <bbednarski@nvidia.com>

bbednarski9 force-pushed the bbednarski/openclaw-cli-launcher branch from 3a4ef58 to 0111d48 Compare July 7, 2026 14:19

copy-pr-bot Bot temporarily deployed to fern July 7, 2026 14:19 Inactive

chore: align Rust attributions with CI

3fe5ff3

Signed-off-by: Bryan Bednarski <bbednarski@nvidia.com>

copy-pr-bot Bot temporarily deployed to fern July 7, 2026 14:28 Inactive

refactor(cli): use one Relay runtime for OpenClaw

c0d9b4b

Signed-off-by: Bryan Bednarski <bbednarski@nvidia.com>

copy-pr-bot Bot temporarily deployed to fern July 7, 2026 15:36 Inactive

bbednarski9 closed this Jul 8, 2026

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