OpenClaw Terraform Provider

Unofficial community provider — This project is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the OpenClaw project or OpenAI. It is an independent, community-maintained Terraform provider.

The OpenClaw Terraform provider enables declarative, version-controlled management of your OpenClaw AI gateway configuration. Instead of editing openclaw.json by hand, define your gateway, channels, agents, and routing rules as Terraform resources.

Why Terraform for OpenClaw?

Version control -- track every config change in git
Review workflows -- PR-based approval for gateway changes
Reproducibility -- spin up identical configurations across environments
Composition -- combine OpenClaw config with cloud infrastructure in a single plan
Drift detection -- terraform plan shows exactly what changed outside Terraform

Architecture

The provider has two transport backends:

Infrastructure as Code

Terraform CLI

openclaw provider

WSClient

Live JSON-RPC

OpenClaw Gateway

:18789

FileClient

Direct read/write

~/.openclaw/

openclaw.json

WebSocket mode connects to a running gateway and patches config via the config.patch RPC. Changes take effect immediately (depending on reload_mode).

File mode reads and writes the JSON config file directly. Useful for pre-provisioning a config before the gateway starts, or in CI/CD pipelines.

npm install -g openclaw

2. Start the gateway

openclaw gateway --port 18789

3. Write your Terraform config

terraform {
  required_providers {
    openclaw = {
      source = "registry.terraform.io/kylemclaren/openclaw"
    }
  }
}

provider "openclaw" {
  gateway_url = "ws://127.0.0.1:18789"
  token       = var.gateway_token
}

resource "openclaw_gateway" "main" {
  port        = 18789
  bind        = "loopback"
  reload_mode = "hybrid"
}

resource "openclaw_agent_defaults" "main" {
  model_primary   = "anthropic/claude-sonnet-4-20250514"
  workspace       = "~/.openclaw/workspace"
  timeout_seconds = 600
  heartbeat_every = "30m"
}

resource "openclaw_channel_whatsapp" "main" {
  dm_policy  = "pairing"
  allow_from = ["+15555550123"]
}

4. Apply

terraform init
terraform plan
terraform apply

5. Verify

cat ~/.openclaw/openclaw.json

File Mode (Offline Provisioning)

If no gateway_url is set, the provider operates on the config file directly:

provider "openclaw" {
  config_path = "/etc/openclaw/openclaw.json"
}

This is useful for:

Building a config before deploying the gateway
CI/CD pipelines that generate configs for deployment
Environments where the gateway isn't running during provisioning

Resource Overview

Core

Resource	Description	Doc
`openclaw_gateway`	Server settings	Reference
`openclaw_agent_defaults`	Default agent config	Reference
`openclaw_agent`	Individual agent	Reference
`openclaw_binding`	Agent routing rules	Reference
`openclaw_session`	Session lifecycle	Reference
`openclaw_messages`	Message handling	Reference

Channels

Resource	Description	Doc
`openclaw_channel_whatsapp`	WhatsApp	Reference
`openclaw_channel_telegram`	Telegram	Reference
`openclaw_channel_discord`	Discord	Reference
`openclaw_channel_slack`	Slack	Reference
`openclaw_channel_signal`	Signal	Reference
`openclaw_channel_imessage`	iMessage	Reference
`openclaw_channel_googlechat`	Google Chat	Reference

Extensions

Resource	Description	Doc
`openclaw_plugin`	Plugin entry	Reference
`openclaw_skill`	Skill entry	Reference
`openclaw_hook`	Webhooks	Reference
`openclaw_cron`	Cron jobs	Reference
`openclaw_tools`	Tool access control	Reference

Data Sources

Data Source	Description	Doc
`openclaw_gateway`	Gateway settings (read-only)	Reference
`openclaw_agent_defaults`	Agent default settings (read-only)	Reference
`openclaw_agents`	All configured agents (read-only)	Reference
`openclaw_channels`	All configured channels (read-only)	Reference
`openclaw_config`	Full raw config + hash	Reference
`openclaw_health`	Gateway health (WS only)	Reference

Import

All resources support terraform import. Singleton resources use a fixed ID:

terraform import openclaw_gateway.main gateway
terraform import openclaw_session.main session

Array-based resources use their identifier:

terraform import openclaw_agent.research research
terraform import openclaw_binding.discord_research "research/discord"
terraform import openclaw_plugin.web_search web_search
terraform import openclaw_skill.calculator calculator

Examples

Basic: Gateway with Two Channels -- Single gateway with WhatsApp and Telegram
Multi-Agent: Channel-Based Routing -- Multiple agents with channel-based routing
Full-Stack: Every Resource Type -- Every resource type exercised