OpenClaw Dashboard: Features, Setup & How to Use It (2026)

What Is the OpenClaw Dashboard?

OpenClaw runs through chat interfaces — Telegram, Slack, Discord. You message your bot, it does things. For most daily use, that's all you need.

But sometimes you want to see what's happening under the hood. Which skills are active? What's scheduled for tomorrow? Why did that cron job fail at 3 AM?

That's what the OpenClaw Dashboard is for. It's a built-in web interface (officially called the "Control UI") that ships with every OpenClaw installation. No extra software to install. Run one command and it opens in your browser.

If you're new to OpenClaw, start with our beginner's tutorial first. This article goes deeper — covering dashboard features, remote access setup, third-party alternatives, and when you actually need any of this.

Opening the Dashboard

On your local machine:

openclaw dashboard

That's it. Your browser opens to http://127.0.0.1:18789/ and you're in.

On a VPS, it's one extra step. The dashboard binds to localhost by default (for security), so you need a tunnel:

ssh -N -L 18789:127.0.0.1:18789 user@your-server-ip

Then open http://localhost:18789/ on your local machine. Traffic flows through the encrypted SSH connection to your VPS. If you followed our VPS hosting guide to set up OpenClaw, this takes about 10 seconds.

First time connecting? The dashboard asks for your gateway token. Find it with:

openclaw config get gateway.auth.token

Copy, paste, you're authenticated. The token gets stored in your browser's session storage — it won't persist across tabs, which is the right security tradeoff.

Dashboard v2: What Changed

OpenClaw v2026.3.12 (released March 2026) shipped a major dashboard overhaul. The old interface was functional but bare-bones — a single page that tried to do everything at once.

Dashboard v2 split things into dedicated tabs, added a command palette, and fixed the mobile layout. If you used the old version and gave up on it, worth trying again.

Here's what each tab does now.

Overview

Your home screen. Shows gateway connection status, system info, and an agent hierarchy tree. If you're running sub-agents (an agent that spawns other agents for subtasks), you'll see the parent-child relationships with live/idle status indicators.

Most useful for a quick "is everything running?" sanity check.

Chat

Talk to your agents directly in the browser. Same as messaging through Telegram, but with extras — search within conversations, pin messages, export chat history. Streaming responses show up in real-time.

Handy when you're already in the dashboard and don't want to switch to Telegram. But for daily use, your chat app is still more convenient.

Agents

This is where the depth is. Select an agent and you get nested panels:

• Overview — Identity, model, workspace path
• Files — Browse and edit SOUL.md (the agent's personality/instructions) and AGENTS.md (sub-agent definitions) right in the browser
• Tools — Per-tool access control. Want to block an agent from running shell commands? Toggle it off here.
• Skills — Enable or disable OpenClaw skills per agent. Your social media agent probably doesn't need the Code Review skill.
• Channels — See which platforms are connected and their status
• Cron — Scheduled jobs for this specific agent

Skills

Global view of all installed skills. Green means ready, yellow means a dependency is missing (usually an API key). You can configure API keys directly from this tab — no more editing .env files over SSH.

Sessions

Every conversation your agent has — across Telegram, Slack, Discord, browser chat — shows up here. Each session shows the model being used, whether it's a DM or group chat, context usage percentage, and token count.

When an agent starts acting weird, sessions is the first place to check. High context usage (90%+) means the agent is bumping against its memory limit and might start forgetting earlier instructions.

Configuration

Visual editor for all OpenClaw settings. API keys, prompts, gateway auth, feature flags. Changes get validated before saving, and the system creates auto-backups before applying them.

Beats editing JSON files over SSH.

Cron Jobs

Schedule anything with standard cron syntax. See the status, last run time, next run time, and duration for each job. Social media scheduling, content calendar automation, daily reports — all managed here.

Schedule Bot (the scheduling skill) creates entries here automatically when you set up recurring posts through chat.

Execution Approvals

Safety net for high-risk actions. If an agent tries to do something flagged as dangerous — deleting files, sending mass messages, modifying system config — it lands here for manual approval before executing.

You can configure which actions need approval and which can run automatically.

Remote Access Options

The dashboard binds to 127.0.0.1 by default. This is intentional. Here are the safe ways to reach it from outside your server.

SSH Tunnel (Simplest)

ssh -N -L 18789:127.0.0.1:18789 user@your-server-ip

Pro: Works immediately, no configuration. Con: You need to keep the terminal open (or run it in the background with -f).

Tailscale (Best for Regular Use)

Tailscale creates a private VPN between your devices. Install it on your VPS and your laptop, and they can talk directly over an encrypted mesh network.

# On your VPS
curl -fsSL https://tailscale.com/install.sh | sh
sudo tailscale up

Then add to your OpenClaw config:

openclaw config set gateway.auth.allowTailscale true

Now access the dashboard at http://your-vps-tailscale-ip:18789/ from any device on your Tailscale network. No tunnel needed, no token needed. Tailscale handles authentication.

This is what I'd recommend for anyone who checks their dashboard more than occasionally.

HTTPS Reverse Proxy (For Custom Domains)

If you want dashboard.yourdomain.com, put Nginx or Caddy in front of it. The Nginx config from our VPS hosting guide works with a small tweak — you need to extend the WebSocket timeout:

server {
listen 443 ssl;
server_name dashboard.yourdomain.com;

location / {
proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:18789;
proxy_http_version 1.1;
proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
proxy_set_header Connection "upgrade";
proxy_set_header Host $host;
proxy_read_timeout 86400s;
}
}

The proxy_read_timeout 86400s is important. Default Nginx timeout is 60 seconds — dashboard WebSocket connections will drop constantly without it.

Don't forget to add your domain to the allowed origins:

openclaw config set gateway.allowedOrigins '["https://dashboard.yourdomain.com"]'

ClawSquire (Desktop App)

ClawSquire is a free desktop app that handles SSH tunneling with a GUI. Enter your VPS credentials, click Connect. Good if you're not comfortable with terminal commands.

LAN Access

For home servers or local networks:

openclaw config set gateway.bind "lan"

This binds the dashboard to your local network interface instead of just localhost. Access it from any device on the same WiFi. Only do this on trusted networks.

One absolute rule: never expose port 18789 directly to the public internet. The dashboard uses WebSocket auth with token-based authentication, but it's not built for direct internet exposure. Always put a tunnel, VPN, or reverse proxy in front of it.

Third-Party Dashboards Worth Knowing About

The built-in Control UI covers single-agent management well. But the OpenClaw community has built specialized dashboards that go further.

Mission Control (440 GitHub Stars)

Multi-agent orchestration. If you're running several agents that work together — one researches, one writes, one publishes — Mission Control shows the full workflow with AI planning flows and real-time WebSocket event feeds. It can auto-spawn new agents per task.

Overkill for a single social media bot. Interesting if you're building agent teams.

LobsterBoard (382 GitHub Stars)

Drag-and-drop dashboard builder with 50+ widgets. Cost tracking, usage analytics, custom layouts. Think Grafana for OpenClaw. Business Source License — free for personal use, paid for commercial.

Clawd Control (101 GitHub Stars)

Zero build step — a single Node.js server that auto-discovers your local agents. Most lightweight option if you want something running in 30 seconds.

Others

There's also a Chrome extension for quick access without opening a new tab, and an Android app on Google Play for mobile monitoring. Both connect to your existing dashboard instance.

Changing Dashboard Settings

A few configurations worth tweaking from defaults.

Change the port (if 18789 conflicts with something):

openclaw config set gateway.port 9999

Set a custom base path (for reverse proxy deployments):

openclaw config set gateway.controlUi.basePath "/dashboard"

Now the UI lives at http://localhost:9999/dashboard/ instead of the root.

Regenerate your auth token (if you suspect it's compromised):

openclaw doctor --generate-gateway-token

After any gateway config change, restart for it to take effect:

openclaw gateway restart

Troubleshooting Common Issues

Blank white page after loading: Clear your browser cache with Ctrl+Shift+R. If that doesn't fix it, check the browser console (F12) for errors and verify the gateway is actually running.

"Device identity error": You're probably accessing via IP address instead of localhost. The dashboard needs a secure context — use http://localhost:18789, not http://127.0.0.1:18789 or http://your-ip:18789.

WebSocket disconnections: Usually a reverse proxy timeout issue. Set proxy_read_timeout to at least 86400 seconds in Nginx. If you're using Cloudflare, their free tier has a 100-second WebSocket timeout that will cause constant drops — use a direct connection instead.

"Unauthorized" after working fine before: Token drift. Run openclaw doctor --generate-gateway-token to get a fresh token, then re-authenticate in the browser.

Port already in use: Something else is running on 18789. Either stop that process or change the dashboard port with openclaw config set gateway.port <new-port>.

Do You Actually Need the Dashboard?

Honest answer: maybe not.

Most OpenClaw users interact entirely through Telegram or Slack. They set up their skills, connect their platforms, and never look at the web interface again. Chat handles 90% of daily tasks.

The dashboard becomes valuable when you're:

• Debugging — Something isn't working and you need to check session context, cron job logs, or skill status
• Managing multiple agents — Keeping track of what each agent does and which skills it has access to
• Configuring — Changing settings is faster in a visual editor than editing config files
• Monitoring — Checking resource usage, connection status, upcoming scheduled tasks

For social media specifically, if you're using OpenClaw with skills like Social Poster, Content Forge, and Schedule Bot (as described in our social media guide), the dashboard is nice for checking scheduled post status and tweaking cron schedules. But you could also just ask your Telegram bot "what's scheduled for this week?" and get the same information.

And then there's the option of skipping the dashboard entirely. PostClaw runs OpenClaw under the hood but wraps everything in a Telegram interface — no web dashboards, no SSH tunnels, no config files. Same AI engine, same content quality, $29/month with all 13 platforms preconfigured. If the dashboard section of this article felt like more setup than you want, that's probably the right call.

Getting Started

If you already have OpenClaw running:

openclaw dashboard

Open the browser, authenticate with your gateway token, explore the tabs. Five minutes and you'll know whether the dashboard adds value to your workflow.

If you need to install OpenClaw first, start with our beginner's tutorial for local setup or the VPS hosting guide for a server installation. Both will have you dashboard-ready by the end.

For a deeper dive into What Is OpenClaw and the full ecosystem, our pillar guide covers the big picture — including where the dashboard fits alongside chat interfaces, the skills system, and the community ecosystem.