Monitoring & Observability for AI Agents¶
How to monitor OpenClaw agents, track costs, and build observability into your AI deployment. Real tools, real stacks, real community setups.
Last updated: February 14, 2026
Table of Contents¶
- Why Monitoring Matters
- Monitoring Tools
- Cost Tracking
- Recommended Stacks
- Health Checks & Alerts
- Logging & Tracing
- Security Monitoring
- Community Voices
Why Monitoring Matters¶
Without monitoring, you will get surprised:
| Failure Mode | What Happens | How Often |
|---|---|---|
| Token runaway | $500 overnight bill from heartbeats | Weekly (unmonitored) |
| Silent agent death | Agent crashes, nobody notices for hours | Common |
| Model degradation | Responses get worse, no metrics to prove it | Subtle |
| Security breach | Exposed endpoint, leaked credentials | 42,000+ instances found public |
| Cost creep | Redundant API calls, $70/month waste | One user discovered after months |
"Setup hell is a feature. 24 automated jobs over 7 channels = real production. The monitoring part is the key: what today runs, breaks tomorrow at 3am." -- @LeoYe_AI
Monitoring Tools¶
OpenClaw-Specific¶
| Tool | Stars | What It Does | Install |
|---|---|---|---|
| Crabwalk | 768 | Real-time companion monitor for OpenClaw agents. Token tracking, session visibility | github.com/luccast/crabwalk |
| ClawDeck | 130 | Open-source command center. Mission control for multi-agent fleets | github.com/clawdeckio/clawdeck |
| mission-control | 16 | Bash + SQLite coordination layer. Zero dependencies. Agent fleet orchestration | github.com/alanxurox/mission-control |
| ClawK | N/A | macOS menu bar companion app for OpenClaw monitoring | github.com/fraction12/ClawK |
| openclaw-shield | N/A | Security plugin -- prevents secret leaks, PII exposure, destructive commands | github.com/knostic/openclaw-shield |
| openclaw-monitor | N/A | Real-time dashboard: sessions, tokens, model performance | github.com/aboodalomar/openclaw-monitor |
| openclaw-monitoring | N/A | Smart gateway monitoring: cost tracking, channel monitor, auto-recovery | github.com/Zolobaby/openclaw-monitoring |
General LLM/Agent Observability¶
| Tool | Stars | What It Does | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|
| AgentOps | 5,280 | Python SDK. Automatic cost tracking, benchmarking. CrewAI/Langchain integration | Any Python agent framework |
| 1Panel | 33,391 | Server control panel with web UI. Manages containers, tasks, OpenClaw agents | VPS/Linux server ops |
| FlowMetr | 39 | Workflow/pipeline/AI agent observability -- metrics, logs, traces | Pipeline monitoring |
| DashClaw | 20 | AI agent governance platform -- action tracking, risk signals, guardrails | Enterprise compliance |
| GPM | 2 | GPU + LLM monitoring daemon with OpenTelemetry integration | GPU-heavy deployments |
Cost Tracking¶
| Tool | Type | Features | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|
| AgentOps | SDK | Auto cost tracking across OpenAI/Claude/Gemini | Most popular (5,280 stars) |
| Diagnyx SDK | SDK | Multi-language (JS/Python/Go/Rust), real-time tracking | Polyglot teams |
| open-cloud-ops | Platform | Cloud cost + LLM cost + cyber resilience | Full FinOps visibility |
| Crabwalk | Monitor | Real-time token consumption tracking | OpenClaw-specific |
| Helicone | SaaS | Proxy-based cost tracking, caching, rate limiting | Production teams |
| LiteLLM | Proxy | Cost proxy across 100+ LLM providers | Multi-provider routing |
Recommended Stacks¶
Stack A: Solo Founder / Getting Started¶
| Component | Purpose | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Crabwalk | Real-time agent monitoring | Free |
| Telegram bot | Human alerts when decisions needed | Free |
| Cron health checks | curl localhost:18789/health every 5 min |
Free |
| Built-in token dashboard | Basic cost visibility | Free (v2026.2.6+) |
Total: $0/month. Setup: 2 hours.
"OpenClaw for orchestration, Claude as brain, Telegram for alerts, Cron jobs for automated health checks. $200/mo." -- @iamanshdeb
Stack B: Multi-Agent Fleet (5-40 agents)¶
| Component | Purpose | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| ClawDeck | Command center UI for all agents | Free |
| Crabwalk | Per-agent real-time monitoring | Free |
| mission-control | Bash + SQLite coordination layer | Free |
| AgentOps SDK | Automatic cost tracking | Free tier available |
Total: $0-50/month. Setup: 1-2 days.
"Running 40+ OpenClaw agents across content, monitoring, ops. Agent coordination is the real challenge. Start with 3-4 focused agents, then scale workflows." -- @mimosabot
Stack C: Enterprise / Production¶
| Component | Purpose | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| 1Panel | Server-wide visibility, web UI | Free |
| AgentOps + OpenTelemetry | Structured tracing, cost tracking | Free-$500/mo |
| Prometheus + Grafana | Metrics, dashboards, alerting | Free (self-hosted) |
| DashClaw | Governance, risk signals, guardrails | Free |
| openclaw-shield | Security monitoring (secrets, PII) | Free |
Total: $0-500/month. Setup: 1 week.
Stack D: Quick & Dirty (Dev/Internal)¶
"Most AI platforms are just Streamlit behind the scenes. Your internal agent dashboard doesn't need to look pretty, it needs to work." -- @Alacritic_Super
Health Checks & Alerts¶
Basic Health Check (Built-in)¶
# Simple health check
curl http://localhost:18789/health
# Cron job: check every 5 minutes, alert on failure
*/5 * * * * curl -sf http://localhost:18789/health || \
curl -s "https://api.telegram.org/bot${TG_TOKEN}/sendMessage?chat_id=${TG_CHAT}&text=OpenClaw+DOWN"
Heartbeat Pattern¶
# heartbeat.sh - runs every 5 minutes
#!/bin/bash
RESPONSE=$(curl -sf http://localhost:18789/health)
if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then
# Alert via Telegram/Slack/Discord
echo "ALERT: OpenClaw gateway not responding"
# Optionally auto-restart
docker restart openclaw-gateway
fi
Alert Thresholds¶
| Metric | Warning (80%) | Critical (95%) |
|---|---|---|
| API spend | $1,600/mo | $1,900/mo |
| Token usage | 80% of daily target | 95% of daily target |
| Response latency | >5s average | >15s average |
| Error rate | >5% of requests | >15% of requests |
| Memory usage | >80% container limit | >95% container limit |
Best Practices¶
- Health checks every 5 minutes (heartbeat pattern)
- Cost alerts at 50%, 75%, 90% of monthly budget
- Use Telegram/Slack for human alerts (not email -- too slow)
- Auto-restart on failure with backoff (don't restart loops)
- Log everything -- you'll thank yourself at 3am
Logging & Tracing¶
OpenTelemetry for LLMs¶
The emerging standard for production LLM tracing:
Request → Agent → LLM Call → Tool Use → Response
│ │ │ │ │
└─────────┴────────┴──────────┴──────────┘
OpenTelemetry Spans
Tools supporting OTEL: - GPM (GPU + LLM monitoring daemon) - FlowMetr (workflow observability) - AgentOps (automatic instrumentation) - Helicone (proxy-based)
What to Log¶
| Level | What | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Always | Token usage per request | Cost tracking |
| Always | Model used per request | Cost attribution |
| Always | Error responses | Debugging |
| Production | Full request/response | Audit trail |
| Production | Tool calls and results | Behavior analysis |
| Debug | Prompt templates | Prompt engineering |
Log Rotation¶
# Docker log rotation (docker-compose.yml)
services:
openclaw:
logging:
driver: "json-file"
options:
max-size: "10m"
max-file: "5"
Security Monitoring¶
openclaw-shield¶
The only OpenClaw-specific security monitoring plugin:
| Feature | What It Prevents |
|---|---|
| Secret detection | API keys, tokens, passwords in agent output |
| PII protection | Names, emails, phone numbers leaking |
| Destructive command blocking | rm -rf, DROP TABLE, dangerous git ops |
| Prompt injection detection | Attempts to override agent instructions |
Security Monitoring Checklist¶
- [ ] openclaw-shield installed and configured
- [ ] Gateway bound to localhost only (not 0.0.0.0)
- [ ] HTTPS via reverse proxy (Caddy recommended)
- [ ] API key rotation scheduled (monthly)
- [ ] Docker container limits enforced
- [ ] Skill allowlist maintained
- [ ] Log review scheduled (weekly)
- [ ] Port scan monitoring (external)
Community Voices¶
"Cursor for coding + OpenClaw agents running in background = dev team on demand. One handles IDE, other handles research/docs/deployment/monitoring. Absurdly productive." -- @agent_emmett
"Business running on autopilot with Sunday cron drafting content. For bulletproof crons (no silent fails), ClawTick adds cloud triggers + idempotency/monitoring." -- @abakermi
"Agent Ops Dashboard: real-time fleet monitor, live event stream, cost tracking by model, agent status, system health." -- @AxiomBot
Tooling Gaps (As of Feb 2026)¶
| Gap | Status | Workaround |
|---|---|---|
| Native Prometheus exporter for OpenClaw | Open issue #4834 | Custom health check + node_exporter |
| K8s-ready observability | Helm chart exists, single-instance only | Docker Compose + external monitoring |
| Unified dashboard (OpenClaw + Claude Code) | Not available | Separate monitoring per tool |
| Automated cost anomaly detection | Not built-in | AgentOps alerts + manual thresholds |
| Native audit logging | Missing | DashClaw or custom logging |