Tools and Plugins

Everything the agent does beyond generating text happens through tools. Tools are how the agent reads files, runs commands, browses the web, sends messages, and interacts with devices.

Tools, skills, and plugins

OpenClaw has three layers that work together:

Tools are what the agent calls
A tool is a typed function the agent can invoke (e.g. exec, browser, web_search, message). OpenClaw ships a set of built-in tools and plugins can register additional ones.

The agent sees tools as structured function definitions sent to the model API.
Skills teach the agent when and how
A skill is a markdown file (SKILL.md) injected into the system prompt. Skills give the agent context, constraints, and step-by-step guidance for using tools effectively. Skills live in your workspace, in shared folders, or ship inside plugins.

Skills reference | Creating skills
Plugins package everything together
A plugin is a package that can register any combination of capabilities: channels, model providers, tools, skills, speech, realtime transcription, realtime voice, media understanding, image generation, video generation, web fetch, web search, and more. Some plugins are core (shipped with OpenClaw), others are external (published on npm by the community).

Install and configure plugins | Build your own

Built-in tools

These tools ship with OpenClaw and are available without installing any plugins:

Tool	What it does	Page
`exec` / `process`	Run shell commands, manage background processes	Exec
`code_execution`	Run sandboxed remote Python analysis	Code Execution
`browser`	Control a Chromium browser (navigate, click, screenshot)	Browser
`web_search` / `x_search` / `web_fetch`	Search the web, search X posts, fetch page content	Web
`read` / `write` / `edit`	File I/O in the workspace
`apply_patch`	Multi-hunk file patches	Apply Patch
`message`	Send messages across all channels	Agent Send
`canvas`	Drive node Canvas (present, eval, snapshot)
`nodes`	Discover and target paired devices
`cron` / `gateway`	Manage scheduled jobs; inspect, patch, restart, or update the gateway
`image` / `image_generate`	Analyze or generate images	Image Generation
`music_generate`	Generate music tracks	Music Generation
`video_generate`	Generate videos	Video Generation
`tts`	One-shot text-to-speech conversion	TTS
`sessions_*` / `subagents` / `agents_list`	Session management, status, and sub-agent orchestration	Sub-agents
`session_status`	Lightweight `/status`-style readback and session model override	Session Tools

For image work, use image for analysis and image_generate for generation or editing. If you target openai/*, google/*, fal/*, or another non-default image provider, configure that provider’s auth/API key first.

For music work, use music_generate. If you target google/*, minimax/*, or another non-default music provider, configure that provider’s auth/API key first.

For video work, use video_generate. If you target qwen/* or another non-default video provider, configure that provider’s auth/API key first.

For workflow-driven audio generation, use music_generate when a plugin such as ComfyUI registers it. This is separate from tts, which is text-to-speech.

session_status is the lightweight status/readback tool in the sessions group. It answers /status-style questions about the current session and can optionally set a per-session model override; model=default clears that override. Like /status, it can backfill sparse token/cache counters and the active runtime model label from the latest transcript usage entry.

gateway is the owner-only runtime tool for gateway operations:

config.schema.lookup for one path-scoped config subtree before edits
config.get for the current config snapshot + hash
config.patch for partial config updates with restart
config.apply only for full-config replacement
update.run for explicit self-update + restart

For partial changes, prefer config.schema.lookup then config.patch. Use config.apply only when you intentionally replace the entire config. The tool also refuses to change tools.exec.ask or tools.exec.security; legacy tools.bash.* aliases normalize to the same protected exec paths.

Plugin-provided tools

Plugins can register additional tools. Some examples:

Lobster — typed workflow runtime with resumable approvals
LLM Task — JSON-only LLM step for structured output
Music Generation — shared music_generate tool with workflow-backed providers
Diffs — diff viewer and renderer
OpenProse — markdown-first workflow orchestration

Tool configuration

Allow and deny lists

Control which tools the agent can call via tools.allow / tools.deny in config. Deny always wins over allow.

{
  tools: {
    allow: ["group:fs", "browser", "web_search"],
    deny: ["exec"],
  },
}

Tool profiles

tools.profile sets a base allowlist before allow/deny is applied. Per-agent override: agents.list[].tools.profile.

Profile	What it includes
`full`	No restriction (same as unset)
`coding`	`group:fs`, `group:runtime`, `group:web`, `group:sessions`, `group:memory`, `cron`, `image`, `image_generate`, `music_generate`, `video_generate`
`messaging`	`group:messaging`, `sessions_list`, `sessions_history`, `sessions_send`, `session_status`
`minimal`	`session_status` only

Tool groups

Use group:* shorthands in allow/deny lists:

Group	Tools
`group:runtime`	exec, process, code_execution (`bash` is accepted as an alias for `exec`)
`group:fs`	read, write, edit, apply_patch
`group:sessions`	sessions_list, sessions_history, sessions_send, sessions_spawn, sessions_yield, subagents, session_status
`group:memory`	memory_search, memory_get
`group:web`	web_search, x_search, web_fetch
`group:ui`	browser, canvas
`group:automation`	cron, gateway
`group:messaging`	message
`group:nodes`	nodes
`group:agents`	agents_list
`group:media`	image, image_generate, music_generate, video_generate, tts
`group:openclaw`	All built-in OpenClaw tools (excludes plugin tools)

sessions_history returns a bounded, safety-filtered recall view. It strips thinking tags, <relevant-memories> scaffolding, plain-text tool-call XML payloads (including <tool_call>...</tool_call>, <function_call>...</function_call>, <tool_calls>...</tool_calls>, <function_calls>...</function_calls>, and truncated tool-call blocks), downgraded tool-call scaffolding, leaked ASCII/full-width model control tokens, and malformed MiniMax tool-call XML from assistant text, then applies redaction/truncation and possible oversized-row placeholders instead of acting as a raw transcript dump.

Provider-specific restrictions

Use tools.byProvider to restrict tools for specific providers without changing global defaults:

{
  tools: {
    profile: "coding",
    byProvider: {
      "google-antigravity": { profile: "minimal" },
    },
  },
}