2026 OpenClaw Field Practice: Bundler Precheck, Dependency Diff Summary & CI Webhook Relay on a Remote Mac

Install Node 22 LTS (or Node 24 once openclaw doctor is clean on your build) for the dedicated macOS account that will own the gateway. Install OpenClaw with the official curl installer or npm install -g openclaw, run openclaw onboard, then iterate on openclaw doctor until warnings you care about are resolved.

Store webhook shared secrets, optional Git read tokens, and Bundler mirror credentials under ~/.config/openclaw/ or your team’s chosen secrets directory at mode 600. Export NODE_BINARY in the launchd plist so reboots do not fall back to an interactive-only nvm path.

Load the gateway with launchctl bootstrap (or your org’s wrapper) and prove the process survives a reboot. Schedule a lightweight LaunchAgent that runs curl -fsS against the documented health URL from docs.openclaw.ai; on non-zero exit, restart the gateway job and increment a metric or file log.

When debugging, replay one webhook with curl from the same host Jenkins or GitHub Actions will use, not only from your laptop VPN path. For LaunchAgent-specific patterns and paths, see gateway healthcheck LaunchAgent how-to.

# Example: hourly health (adjust URL to your local gateway health route)
curl -fsS --max-time 8 "http://127.0.0.1:18789/health" || launchctl kickstart -k gui/$(id -u)/com.example.openclaw.gateway

Never mutate a single shared clone for concurrent CI events. Create WORKDIR=$(mktemp -d /var/tmp/openclaw-bundler.XXXXXX) (or an NVMe scratch mount), export GIT_TERMINAL_PROMPT=0, and shallow-clone the repository referenced in the webhook JSON. If you need Bundler to write gems, set BUNDLE_PATH="$WORKDIR/vendor/bundle" so installs stay inside the disposable tree.

Pass through REF or SHA fields from the payload; default to origin/main only when the sender guarantees that branch. Clean up with rm -rf "$WORKDIR" in a trap on EXIT.

After cd "$WORKDIR/repo", run bundle _2.4.22_ version or the Bundler version recorded in Gemfile.lock so CI and gateway agree. Execute bundle check first—non-zero means missing gems or platform mismatch before you spend network budget. Then collect bundle outdated --parseable (adjust flags for your Bundler major) and count lines for the summary.

When the webhook includes a base SHA, optionally git fetch origin "$BASE_REF" and git diff "$BASE_SHA..HEAD" -- Gemfile.lock; truncate diff output to roughly four kilobytes for chat-friendly alerts. Serialize a single JSON object: ok, repo, ref, bundleCheckExit, outdatedLines, lockDiffExcerpt, durationMs.

#!/usr/bin/env bash
set -euo pipefail
WORKDIR=$(mktemp -d /var/tmp/openclaw-bundler.XXXXXX)
trap 'rm -rf "$WORKDIR"' EXIT
git clone --depth 20 "$GIT_URL" "$WORKDIR/app"
cd "$WORKDIR/app" && git checkout -q "$GIT_SHA"

export BUNDLE_PATH="$WORKDIR/vendor/bundle"
export BUNDLE_JOBS="${BUNDLE_JOBS:-6}"
export BUNDLE_RETRY="${BUNDLE_RETRY:-4}"

LOG="$WORKDIR/bundler.log"
bundle check >>"$LOG" 2>&1 || BC=$?
bundle outdated --parseable >>"$LOG" 2>&1 || true
# Build SUMMARY_JSON from $LOG + metadata (jq recommended)
# echo "$SUMMARY_JSON" | curl -sS --max-time 25 -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
#   -H "Authorization: Bearer $WEBHOOK_SECRET" -d @- "$ALERT_URL"

If you route the same payload to several receivers, reuse the fan-out ideas in multi-endpoint CI summary routing.

Wrap bundle check and optional bundle install --local probes in up to three attempts with sleeps of two, four, and eight seconds between failures—mirroring the retry posture we use for outbound CI summaries elsewhere on MacPull. Cap wall clock per attempt with timeout or Bundler-friendly environment knobs so a stuck rubygems path cannot wedged the gateway worker.

Archive bundler.log plus redacted environment metadata into ~/Library/Logs/openclaw-bundler/$(date +%Y%m%d-%H%M%S).tar.gz (path adjustable) before deleting the workdir. Operators can open the tarball while chat still receives only the short JSON excerpt.

For OpenClaw-native retry configuration and dependency-pull auto-retry concepts, read failure recovery and retry on remote Mac.

Point ALERT_URL at any HTTPS endpoint that accepts application/json: Slack incoming-webhook compatible shapes, PagerDuty event bridges, or an internal aggregator. Keep payloads compact; move large artifacts to object storage and include only a URL token in the JSON if needed.

SUMMARY_JSON='{"source":"openclaw-bundler","ok":true,"repo":"acme/api","ref":"main","outdatedCount":3}'
for s in 2 4 8; do
  if curl -fsS --max-time 25 -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
      -H "Authorization: Bearer ${WEBHOOK_TOKEN}" \
      -d "$SUMMARY_JSON" "$ALERT_URL"; then
    break
  fi
  sleep "$s"
done

If your receiver expects vendor-specific keys, map fields in a tiny jq template—similar channel-specific notes appear in Discord webhook CI summary and Telegram and Slack FAQ.

Order of operations: align Node and openclaw doctor, protect tokens, keep the gateway alive with health probes, isolate each hook in a fresh workdir, run Bundler check and outdated with a trimmed diff, retry transient failures, archive logs, and POST compact JSON to your HTTP webhook.

Need a machine that stays awake for this loop? Use public pages: home, purchase, regional guides such as US West, Japan, and South Korea, plus help and the blog—no sign-in required for those destinations.