Operations

What Is Health Checks?

Automated probes that verify an AI agent is running, responsive, and functioning correctly at regular intervals.

In Plain English

Health checks are the heartbeat monitor for your AI agent. They verify that the agent container is running, the process is responsive, the gateway is accepting connections, and the agent can reach its LLM provider.

Clawctl runs health checks at multiple levels: container health (is Docker running?), process health (is the OpenClaw process alive?), gateway health (is the API responding?), and functional health (can the agent process a test message?).

Failed health checks trigger the auto-recovery pipeline: restart, redeploy, alert. This ensures issues are caught and fixed automatically before they affect users.

Why It Matters for OpenClaw

An unhealthy agent that appears "running" is worse than a dead one. Users experience errors or timeouts without understanding why. Health checks catch these silent failures.

How Clawctl Helps

Clawctl runs multi-level health checks every 5 minutes. Dashboard shows real-time agent health status. Failed checks trigger automatic recovery. Historical health data helps identify recurring issues.

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Common Questions

What do health checks verify?

Container status, process health, gateway responsiveness, LLM provider connectivity, and basic functional verification.

How often do health checks run?

Every 5 minutes by default. Post-deploy checks run immediately with a 15-second warm-up period.

Can I see health check history?

Yes. The Clawctl dashboard shows health status over time, helping identify intermittent issues.