Commands#

nemoclaw help, nemoclaw --help, nemoclaw -h#

Show the top-level usage summary and command groups. Running nemoclaw with no arguments shows the same help output.

$ nemoclaw help

nemoclaw --version, nemoclaw -v#

Print the installed NemoClaw CLI version.

$ nemoclaw --version

nemoclaw onboard#

Run the interactive setup wizard (recommended for new installs). The wizard creates an OpenShell gateway, registers inference providers, builds the sandbox image, and creates the sandbox. Use this command for new installs and for recreating a sandbox after changes to policy or configuration.

$ nemoclaw onboard [--non-interactive] [--resume] [--recreate-sandbox] [--from <Dockerfile>] [--agent <name>] [--dangerously-skip-permissions] [--yes-i-accept-third-party-software]

The installer detects existing sandbox sessions before onboarding and prints a warning if any are found. To make the installer abort instead of continuing, set NEMOCLAW_SINGLE_SESSION=1:

$ NEMOCLAW_SINGLE_SESSION=1 curl -fsSL https://www.nvidia.com/nemoclaw.sh | bash

The wizard prompts for a provider first, then collects the provider credential if needed. Supported non-experimental choices include NVIDIA Endpoints, OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini, and compatible OpenAI or Anthropic endpoints. Credentials are stored in ~/.nemoclaw/credentials.json. For file permissions, plaintext storage behavior, and hardening guidance, see Credential Storage. The legacy nemoclaw setup command is deprecated; use nemoclaw onboard instead.

After provider selection, the wizard prompts for a policy tier that controls the default set of network policy presets applied to the sandbox. Three tiers are available:

After selecting a tier, the wizard shows a combined preset and access-mode screen where you can include or exclude individual presets and toggle each between read and read-write access. For details on tiers and the presets each includes, see Network Policies.

In non-interactive mode, set the tier with NEMOCLAW_POLICY_TIER (default: balanced):

$ NEMOCLAW_POLICY_TIER=restricted nemoclaw onboard --non-interactive --yes-i-accept-third-party-software

If you enable Brave Search during onboarding, NemoClaw currently stores the Brave API key in the sandbox’s OpenClaw configuration. That means the OpenClaw agent can read the key. NemoClaw explores an OpenShell-hosted credential path first, but the current OpenClaw Brave runtime does not consume that path end to end yet. Treat Brave Search as an explicit opt-in and use a dedicated low-privilege Brave key.

For non-interactive onboarding, you must explicitly accept the third-party software notice:

$ nemoclaw onboard --non-interactive --yes-i-accept-third-party-software

or:

$ NEMOCLAW_ACCEPT_THIRD_PARTY_SOFTWARE=1 nemoclaw onboard --non-interactive

To enable Brave Search in non-interactive mode, set:

$ BRAVE_API_KEY=... \
  nemoclaw onboard --non-interactive

BRAVE_API_KEY enables Brave Search in non-interactive mode and also enables web_fetch.

The wizard prompts for a sandbox name. Names must follow RFC 1123 subdomain rules: lowercase alphanumeric characters and hyphens only, and must start and end with an alphanumeric character. Uppercase letters are automatically lowercased. Names that match global CLI commands (status, list, debug, etc.) are rejected to avoid routing conflicts. Use --agent <name> to target a specific installed agent profile during onboarding.

If you enable Slack during onboarding, the wizard collects both the Bot Token (SLACK_BOT_TOKEN) and the App-Level Token (SLACK_APP_TOKEN). Socket Mode requires both tokens. The app-level token is stored in a dedicated slack-app OpenShell provider and forwarded to the sandbox alongside the bot token.

If you enable Discord during onboarding, the wizard can also prompt for a Discord Server ID, whether the bot should reply only to @mentions or to all messages in that server, and an optional Discord User ID. NemoClaw bakes those values into the sandbox image as Discord guild workspace config so the bot can respond in the selected server, not just in DMs. If you leave the Discord User ID blank, the guild config omits the user allowlist and any member of the configured server can message the bot. Guild responses remain mention-gated by default unless you opt into all-message replies.

If you run onboarding again with the same sandbox name and choose a different inference provider or model, NemoClaw detects the drift and recreates the sandbox so the running OpenClaw UI matches your selection. In interactive mode, the wizard asks for confirmation before delete and recreate. In non-interactive mode, NemoClaw recreates automatically when the stored selection is readable and differs; if NemoClaw cannot read the stored selection, NemoClaw reuses by default. Set NEMOCLAW_RECREATE_SANDBOX=1 to force recreation even when no drift is detected.

Before creating the gateway, the wizard runs preflight checks. It verifies that Docker is reachable, warns on untested runtimes such as Podman, and prints host remediation guidance when prerequisites are missing. The preflight also enforces the OpenShell version range declared in the blueprint (min_openshell_version and max_openshell_version). If the installed OpenShell version falls outside this range, onboarding exits with an actionable error and a link to compatible releases.

$ nemoclaw onboard --from path/to/Dockerfile

$ NEMOCLAW_NON_INTERACTIVE=1 NEMOCLAW_FROM_DOCKERFILE=path/to/Dockerfile nemoclaw onboard

$ nemoclaw onboard --dangerously-skip-permissions

$ NEMOCLAW_DANGEROUSLY_SKIP_PERMISSIONS=1 nemoclaw onboard --non-interactive --yes-i-accept-third-party-software

nemoclaw onboard --from#

Use a custom Dockerfile for the sandbox image. This variant of nemoclaw onboard accepts a --from <Dockerfile> argument to build the sandbox from a user-supplied Dockerfile instead of the default NemoClaw image.

$ nemoclaw onboard --from ./Dockerfile.custom

nemoclaw list#

List all registered sandboxes with their model, provider, and policy presets. Sandboxes with an active SSH session are marked with a ● indicator so you can tell at a glance which sandbox you are already connected to in another terminal.

$ nemoclaw list

nemoclaw deploy#

Deploy NemoClaw to a remote GPU instance through Brev. This command remains as a compatibility wrapper for the older Brev-specific bootstrap flow.

$ nemoclaw deploy <instance-name>

nemoclaw <name> connect#

Connect to a sandbox by name. If the sandbox is not yet in the Ready phase, connect polls openshell sandbox list every few seconds and prints the current phase. This gives you progress output right after onboarding, when the 2.4 GB image is still pulling, instead of a silent hang. Control the wait budget with NEMOCLAW_CONNECT_TIMEOUT (integer seconds, default 120). When the deadline expires, connect exits non-zero with the last-seen phase.

On a TTY, a one-shot hint prints before dropping into the sandbox shell. The hint is agent-aware. It names the correct TUI command for the sandbox’s agent and reminds you to use /exit to leave the chat before exit returns you to the host shell. Set NEMOCLAW_NO_CONNECT_HINT=1 to suppress the hint in scripted workflows. If the sandbox is running an outdated agent version, a non-blocking warning prints before connecting with a nemoclaw <name> rebuild hint. If another terminal is already connected to the sandbox, connect prints a note with the number of existing sessions before proceeding. Multiple concurrent sessions are allowed.

After a host reboot, the OpenShell gateway rotates its SSH host keys. connect detects the resulting identity drift, prunes stale openshell-* entries from ~/.ssh/known_hosts, and retries automatically. You no longer need to re-run nemoclaw onboard after a reboot in this case.

$ nemoclaw my-assistant connect

nemoclaw <name> status#

Show sandbox status, health, and inference configuration.

The command probes every inference provider and reports one of three states on the Inference line:

Local providers (Ollama, vLLM) probe the host-side health endpoint. Remote providers (NVIDIA Endpoints, OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini) use a lightweight reachability check; any HTTP response, including 401 or 403, counts as reachable. No API keys are sent.

A Connected line reports whether the sandbox has any active SSH sessions and, if so, how many.

The Policy section displays the live enforced policy (fetched via openshell policy get --full), which reflects presets added or removed after sandbox creation. If the sandbox is running an outdated agent version, the output includes an Update line with the available version and a nemoclaw <name> rebuild hint.

When other sandboxes have the same messaging channel enabled (Telegram, Discord, or Slack) with the same bot token, the output includes a cross-sandbox overlap warning so you can resolve the conflict before messages start dropping. The command also tails /tmp/gateway.log inside the default sandbox and flags Telegram 409 Conflict errors that indicate a duplicate consumer for the bot token.

$ nemoclaw my-assistant status

nemoclaw <name> logs#

View sandbox logs. Use --follow to stream output in real time.

$ nemoclaw my-assistant logs [--follow]

nemoclaw <name> gateway-token#

Print the OpenClaw gateway auth token for a running sandbox to stdout. The token is required by openclaw tui and the OpenClaw dashboard URL, but onboarding only prints it once. Pipe it into automation or capture it into an environment variable:

$ TOKEN=$(nemoclaw my-assistant gateway-token --quiet)
$ export OPENCLAW_GATEWAY_TOKEN="$TOKEN"

The token is written to stdout with no surrounding text. A one-line security warning is written to stderr; pass --quiet (or -q) to suppress it. The command exits non-zero with a diagnostic on stderr when the sandbox is not registered or when the token cannot be retrieved (for example, if the sandbox is not running).

nemoclaw <name> destroy#

Stop the NIM container, remove the host-side Docker image built during onboard, and delete the sandbox. This removes the sandbox from the registry.

If another terminal has an active SSH session to the sandbox, destroy prints an active-session warning and requires a second confirmation before it proceeds. Pass --yes or --force to skip the prompt in scripted workflows.

$ nemoclaw my-assistant destroy

nemoclaw <name> policy-add#

Add a policy preset to a sandbox. Presets extend the baseline network policy with additional endpoints. Before applying, the command shows which endpoints the preset would open and prompts for confirmation.

$ nemoclaw my-assistant policy-add

To apply a specific preset without the interactive picker, pass its name as a positional argument:

$ nemoclaw my-assistant policy-add pypi --yes

The positional form is required in scripted workflows. Set NEMOCLAW_NON_INTERACTIVE=1 instead of --yes if you want the same behavior from an environment variable. If the preset name is unknown or already applied, the command exits non-zero with a clear error.

Use --dry-run to audit a preset before applying it:

$ nemoclaw my-assistant policy-add --dry-run

nemoclaw <name> policy-list#

List available policy presets and show which ones are applied to the sandbox. The command cross-references the local registry against the live gateway state (via openshell policy get), so it flags presets that are applied in one place but not the other. This catches desync caused by external edits to the gateway policy or stale registry entries after a manual rollback.

$ nemoclaw my-assistant policy-list

nemoclaw <name> policy-remove#

Remove a previously applied policy preset from a sandbox. The command lists only the presets currently applied, prompts you to select one, shows the endpoints that would be removed, and asks for confirmation before narrowing egress.

$ nemoclaw my-assistant policy-remove

To remove a specific preset non-interactively, pass its name as a positional argument:

$ nemoclaw my-assistant policy-remove pypi --yes

Set NEMOCLAW_NON_INTERACTIVE=1 as an alternative to --yes. If the preset is unknown or not currently applied, the command exits non-zero with a clear error.

Unchecking a preset in the onboard TUI checkbox also removes it from the sandbox.

nemoclaw <name> channels list#

List the messaging channels NemoClaw knows about (telegram, discord, slack) with a short description. The command is a static reference; it does not consult credentials or the running sandbox.

$ nemoclaw my-assistant channels list

nemoclaw <name> channels add <channel>#

Store credentials for a messaging channel (telegram, discord, or slack) and rebuild the sandbox so the image picks up the new channel. The command prompts for any missing token, persists it under ~/.nemoclaw/credentials.json, then asks whether to rebuild immediately. Running add for an already-configured channel simply overwrites the stored tokens — the operation is idempotent.

$ nemoclaw my-assistant channels add telegram

Slack requires both SLACK_BOT_TOKEN (bot user OAuth) and SLACK_APP_TOKEN (app-level Socket Mode token); the command prompts for each in turn. When NEMOCLAW_NON_INTERACTIVE=1 is set, any missing token fails fast and no rebuild prompt is shown — instead, the change is queued and you are told to run nemoclaw <name> rebuild manually.

nemoclaw <name> channels remove <channel>#

Clear the stored credentials for a messaging channel and rebuild the sandbox so the image drops the channel. Running remove for a channel that was never configured is a no-op against the credentials file and still triggers the rebuild prompt.

$ nemoclaw my-assistant channels remove telegram

As with channels add, NEMOCLAW_NON_INTERACTIVE=1 skips the rebuild prompt and queues the change for a manual nemoclaw <name> rebuild.

Host-side removal is the supported path because /sandbox/.openclaw/openclaw.json is read-only at runtime; openclaw channels remove cannot modify the baked config from inside the sandbox.

nemoclaw <name> channels stop <channel>#

Pause a single messaging bridge (telegram, discord, or slack) without clearing its credentials. The channel is marked disabled in the per-sandbox registry, and the sandbox is rebuilt so the onboard step skips registering the bridge with the gateway. Credentials stay in ~/.nemoclaw/credentials.json, so a later channels start brings the bridge back without re-entering tokens.

$ nemoclaw my-assistant channels stop telegram

Use channels stop instead of channels remove when you want to pause a bridge temporarily. channels remove is destructive to credentials; channels stop is not.

nemoclaw <name> channels start <channel>#

Re-enable a channel previously paused with channels stop. The channel is removed from the disabled list, the sandbox is rebuilt, and the bridge registers with the gateway again using the stored credentials.

$ nemoclaw my-assistant channels start telegram

nemoclaw <name> skill install <path>#

Deploy a skill directory to a running sandbox. The command validates the SKILL.md frontmatter (a name field is required), uploads all non-dot files preserving subdirectory structure, and performs agent-specific post-install steps.

$ nemoclaw my-assistant skill install ./my-skill/

The skill directory must contain a SKILL.md file with YAML frontmatter that includes a name field. Skill names must contain only alphanumeric characters, dots, hyphens, and underscores.

Files with names starting with . (dotfiles) are skipped and listed in the output. Files with unsafe path characters are rejected to prevent shell injection.

If the skill already exists on the sandbox, the command updates it in place and preserves chat history. For new installs, the agent session index is refreshed so the agent discovers the skill on the next session.

nemoclaw <name> rebuild#

Upgrade a sandbox to the current agent version while preserving workspace state. The command backs up workspace state, destroys the old sandbox (including its host-side Docker image), recreates it with the current image via onboard --resume, and restores workspace state into the new sandbox. Credentials are stripped from backups before storage. Policy presets applied to the old sandbox are reapplied to the new one so your egress rules survive the rebuild.

$ nemoclaw my-assistant rebuild [--yes] [--verbose]

If another terminal has an active SSH session to the sandbox, rebuild prints an active-session warning and requires confirmation before destroying the sandbox. Pass --yes or --force to skip the prompt in scripted workflows.

The sandbox must be running for the backup step to succeed. After restore, the command runs openclaw doctor --fix for cross-version structure repair.

nemoclaw upgrade-sandboxes#

Rebuild sandboxes whose base image is older than the one currently pinned by NemoClaw. NemoClaw resolves the digest of ghcr.io/nvidia/nemoclaw/sandbox-base:latest from the registry, then compares it against the digest each sandbox was created with. Sandboxes that match the current digest are left alone.

$ nemoclaw upgrade-sandboxes [--check] [--auto] [--yes]

Each rebuild reuses the same workspace backup-and-restore flow as nemoclaw <name> rebuild, so workspace files survive the upgrade. If the registry is unreachable (offline or firewalled hosts), NemoClaw falls back to the unpinned :latest tag and reports that the digest could not be resolved instead of failing.

nemoclaw backup-all#

Back up all registered running sandboxes to ~/.nemoclaw/rebuild-backups/. Sandboxes that are not running are skipped.

$ nemoclaw backup-all

The installer calls backup-all automatically before onboarding to protect against data loss during OpenShell upgrades.

nemoclaw <name> snapshot create#

Create a timestamped snapshot of sandbox state. Snapshots are stored in ~/.nemoclaw/rebuild-backups/<name>/.

$ nemoclaw my-assistant snapshot create

Names must be 1 to 63 characters from [A-Za-z0-9._-], start with an alphanumeric character, and cannot look like a version selector (v1, v2, …). Duplicate names per sandbox are rejected; pick a different name or delete the existing snapshot first.

$ nemoclaw my-assistant snapshot create --name before-upgrade

nemoclaw <name> snapshot list#

List available snapshots for a sandbox as a table of version, name, timestamp, and path. Versions (v1, v2, …) are computed on read from timestamp-ascending order, so v1 is the oldest snapshot and vN is the newest. Snapshots created before this feature landed are numbered retroactively.

$ nemoclaw my-assistant snapshot list

nemoclaw <name> snapshot restore [selector] [--to <dst>]#

Restore sandbox state from a snapshot. The sandbox must be running before you restore. If no selector is provided, the latest snapshot is used. Restore performs a clean replacement of each state directory, removing files that were added after the snapshot was taken.

The selector accepts any of:

• A version (v1, v2, …, vN) from snapshot list.

• An exact name passed to snapshot create --name.

• An exact or prefix timestamp (partial prefixes are accepted when they match exactly one snapshot).

Pass --to <dst> to restore the snapshot into a different sandbox instead of the source. When dst does not exist, it is auto-created by reusing the source sandbox’s container image — no re-onboarding needed.

# restore latest snapshot in-place
$ nemoclaw my-assistant snapshot restore

# restore by version
$ nemoclaw my-assistant snapshot restore v3

# restore by user-assigned name
$ nemoclaw my-assistant snapshot restore before-upgrade

# restore by exact timestamp
$ nemoclaw my-assistant snapshot restore 2026-04-21T07-35-55-987Z

# clone v3 into another sandbox
$ nemoclaw my-assistant snapshot restore v3 --to my-assistant-clone

nemoclaw tunnel start#

Start optional host auxiliary services. This is the cloudflared tunnel when cloudflared is installed (for a public URL to the dashboard). Channel messaging (Telegram, Discord, Slack) is not started here; it is configured during nemoclaw onboard and runs through OpenShell-managed constructs.

$ nemoclaw tunnel start

nemoclaw start remains as a deprecated alias that prints a warning and delegates to tunnel start.

nemoclaw tunnel stop#

Stop host auxiliary services started by nemoclaw tunnel start (for example cloudflared). This does not affect messaging channels running inside the sandbox; use nemoclaw <name> channels stop <channel> to pause a specific bridge without destroying the sandbox.

$ nemoclaw tunnel stop

nemoclaw stop remains as a deprecated alias that prints a warning and delegates to tunnel stop.

nemoclaw start#

This command remains as a compatibility alias to nemoclaw tunnel start.

nemoclaw stop#

This command remains as a compatibility alias to nemoclaw tunnel stop.

nemoclaw status#

Show the sandbox list and the status of host auxiliary services (for example cloudflared).

$ nemoclaw status

nemoclaw setup#

This command remains as a compatibility alias to nemoclaw onboard.

$ nemoclaw setup

nemoclaw setup-spark#

This command remains as a compatibility alias to nemoclaw onboard.

$ nemoclaw setup-spark

nemoclaw debug#

Collect diagnostics for bug reports. Gathers system info, Docker state, gateway logs, and sandbox status into a summary or tarball. Use --sandbox <name> to target a specific sandbox, --quick for a smaller snapshot, or --output <path> to save a tarball that you can attach to an issue.

$ nemoclaw debug [--quick] [--sandbox NAME] [--output PATH]

If --output is set and the tarball cannot be written (for example, the destination directory is missing or read-only), the command exits non-zero so scripts can detect the failure.

nemoclaw credentials list#

List the names of all credentials stored in ~/.nemoclaw/credentials.json. Values are not printed.

$ nemoclaw credentials list

nemoclaw credentials reset <KEY>#

Remove a stored credential by name. After removal, re-running nemoclaw onboard re-prompts for that key.

$ nemoclaw credentials reset NVIDIA_API_KEY

nemoclaw gc#

Remove orphaned sandbox Docker images from the host. Each nemoclaw onboard builds an openshell/sandbox-from:<timestamp> image (~765 MB). The destroy and rebuild commands clean up the image automatically, but images from older NemoClaw versions or interrupted operations may remain. This command lists all openshell/sandbox-from:* images, cross-references the sandbox registry, and removes any that are no longer associated with a registered sandbox.

$ nemoclaw gc [--dry-run] [--yes|--force]

nemoclaw uninstall#

Run uninstall.sh to remove NemoClaw sandboxes, gateway resources, related images and containers, and local state. The CLI runs the local uninstall.sh shipped with the installed npm package. If that local script is missing, the CLI does not auto-fetch a remote copy. It prints the versioned URL of the matching uninstall.sh so you can download, review, and run it manually.

Uninstall also stops any orphaned openshell host processes left behind by previous onboard or destroy cycles, including openshell sandbox create, openshell ssh-proxy, and SSH sessions spawned by OpenShell. Earlier releases only stopped openshell forward processes, so those orphans accumulated across runs.

$ nemoclaw uninstall [--yes] [--keep-openshell] [--delete-models]

Legacy nemoclaw setup#

Deprecated. Use nemoclaw onboard instead. Running nemoclaw setup now delegates directly to nemoclaw onboard.

$ nemoclaw setup