@alfe.ai/openclaw

OpenClaw plugin that connects to the local Alfe gateway daemon via IPC.

What It Does

• Connects to the Alfe gateway daemon at ~/.alfe/gateway.sock
• Registers OpenClaw capabilities (sessions, tools, plugins) with the daemon
• Re-registers automatically on reconnect (daemon may restart)
• Gracefully handles daemon being unavailable

Usage

// openclaw.config.js
export default {
  plugins: {
    entries: {
      '@alfe.ai/openclaw': {},
    },
  },
};

The daemon socket path defaults to ~/.alfe/gateway.sock. Override via config (socketPath) or the ALFE_GATEWAY_SOCKET environment variable.

Setup

alfe setup   # Authenticate and install the gateway daemon

Architecture

Alfe Cloud ←—— WebSocket ——→ alfe-gateway daemon (always-on)
                                    ↕ IPC (~/.alfe/gateway.sock)
                              @alfe.ai/openclaw (this plugin)
                                    ↕
                               OpenClaw process

The plugin is a thin IPC client. All heavy lifting (cloud connection, auth, protocol translation) is handled by the daemon.

Plugin Registration Modes

OpenClaw calls activate(api) in different modes. Plugins that start persistent resources (IPC connections, WebSockets, timers) must guard against CLI metadata mode to avoid zombie connections during commands like openclaw plugins list:

// OpenClaw always provides api.runtime (even as empty {} in CLI mode),
// so checking api.runtime truthiness does NOT work.
if (api.registrationMode === 'cli-metadata') {
  log.debug('CLI metadata mode — skipping resource init');
  return;
}

Register tools before this guard so they're available for CLI introspection.

| Mode | Context | Persistent resources? | |---|---|---| | "full" | Gateway run, plugin enabled | Yes | | "setup-runtime" | Gateway run, channel setup | Yes | | "setup-only" | Gateway run, setup-only channels | Yes | | "cli-metadata" | CLI commands | No |

Note

Integration management (install, remove, configure, health) is handled by the gateway service directly — this plugin does not process integration commands.