Reference WebSocket client for the OpenClaw Gateway protocol. It provides the connection state machine used by OpenClaw's own Node and browser clients: challenge-based authentication, typed protocol frames, request correlation, timeouts, reconnect backoff, device-token handling, and event delivery.

The current wire protocol is version 4. General clients must negotiate v4 with minProtocol: 4 and maxProtocol: 4. See the Gateway protocol specification for the complete handshake, authentication, role, scope, and method contracts.

Versioning

Package versions follow the OpenClaw calendar release train: YYYY.M.PATCH, including the OpenClaw prerelease suffix when applicable. The package version is separate from the negotiated wire protocol number.

Install

npm install @openclaw/gateway-client @openclaw/gateway-protocol

Node consumers use the ws transport included as a runtime dependency. Browser consumers provide their platform WebSocket through the browser-safe protocol client surface.

Entry points

@openclaw/gateway-client exports the Node GatewayClient, device-auth helpers, readiness helpers, and timeout utilities.
@openclaw/gateway-client/browser exports the browser-safe protocol client, browser device-auth lifecycle, reconnect policy, and lightweight protocol constants. Its module graph does not import Node built-ins or ws.
@openclaw/gateway-client/readiness exports helpers that delay client startup until the event loop can process Gateway IO.
@openclaw/gateway-client/timeouts exports timeout constants and safe timer resolution helpers.

Node quickstart

import { GatewayClient } from "@openclaw/gateway-client";
import { PROTOCOL_VERSION } from "@openclaw/gateway-protocol/version";

const connected = Promise.withResolvers<void>();
const client = new GatewayClient({
  url: "ws://127.0.0.1:18789",
  token: process.env.OPENCLAW_GATEWAY_TOKEN,
  minProtocol: PROTOCOL_VERSION, // v4
  maxProtocol: PROTOCOL_VERSION, // v4
  onHelloOk: () => connected.resolve(),
  onConnectError: (error) => connected.reject(error),
  onEvent: (event) => {
    console.log(event.event, event.payload);
  },
});

client.start();
await connected.promise;

const status = await client.request("status", {});
console.log(status);

client.stop();

The client waits for the Gateway's connect.challenge event before sending its connect request. It includes the challenge nonce in device authentication and does not fall back to a pre-challenge handshake. onHelloOk fires only after the Gateway accepts the v4 connection, so requests should wait for that callback.

For remote connections, use wss://. Plaintext ws:// is allowed by default only for loopback addresses. Authentication material and Gateway traffic must not cross an untrusted network without transport security.

Browser clients

Import @openclaw/gateway-client/browser when the host owns the WebSocket adapter and device-key storage. The browser entry includes GatewayProtocolClient and GatewayBrowserDeviceAuthLifecycle; it deliberately omits the Node transport, TLS fingerprint handling, and private-network address policy.

The host is responsible for:

creating a GatewayProtocolSocket adapter around the browser WebSocket;
loading and storing browser device identity and issued device tokens;
signing the challenge-bound device payload;
supplying the client identity, role, scopes, and authentication selection;
choosing close and reconnect behavior for product-specific errors.

The shared protocol client still owns frame parsing, request correlation, challenge ordering, timeout cleanup, sequence-gap detection, and reconnect scheduling.

Defaults and reconnect behavior

The Node client starts with a 30 second request timeout, a 15 second connect-challenge timeout, and exponential reconnect delays from 1 second to 30 seconds with a multiplier of 2. Server-provided startup retry hints may override the next delay.

The canonical defaults table and the server policy fields that can replace pre-handshake values are documented in the Gateway protocol specification.

Use the ./timeouts entry point when a host must align readiness or watchdog budgets with these defaults. Use the ./readiness entry point when startup must wait for an event-loop probe before opening the socket.

Bundled internals

The retry supervisor and the small @openclaw/net-policy/ip implementation are inlined into the published JavaScript and declarations. They are implementation details, not public exports or supported API surfaces. ipaddr.js remains an external dependency because the inlined IP helpers use its public runtime and types.

ws, @openclaw/gateway-protocol, and ipaddr.js remain external in the published distribution. Consumers should import protocol types and constants from @openclaw/gateway-protocol, not from bundled implementation paths.

Contract notes

The client is inert at module import and construction time. start() opens the socket; stop() closes it and rejects pending requests.
A request uses request(method, params) after hello-ok. Passing timeoutMs: null creates an intentionally unbounded request.
Device identity persistence, signing, proxy routing, TLS formatting, and logging stay host-owned through GatewayClientHostDeps.
Protocol changes are additive first. Incompatible changes require an explicit wire-version decision and coordinated server/client follow-through.