DC deadclaw
Emergency kill switch for OpenClaw agents. Instantly halts all running agents, pauses scheduled jobs, kills active sessions, and logs everything — triggered by a single message, a WebChat button, or a phone home screen shortcut. Includes a background watchdog that auto-kills agents on runaway loops, excessive token spend, unauthorized network calls, or out-of-bounds file writes. Use this skill whenever the user mentions: emergency stop, kill switch, stop agents, halt agents, panic button, deadclaw, agent safety, runaway agent, kill all, stop everything, or any urgent need to shut down OpenClaw processes immediately.
As a process C 64/100 · Has gaps — weak spots: result and completion, inputs and preconditions, running it twice
What is at stake
The skill contains fragments that, in the wrong hands, cost money or data. Below: what the installer risks and what the author should do.
The skill contains commands that delete files, rewrite disks or execute code fetched from the network. The agent may run them without asking if it believes the instructions require it.
Replace destructive commands with safe equivalents that ask for confirmation, scope them to one folder, and stop piping curl into a shell: pin a version and a checksum.
Below is the worst case for this category. The finding here is medium: the guard saw a sign, not a proof.
The skill asks for more than the task needs: broad tool access, credential environment variables, binaries. Every extra permission widens the damage from a mistake or a compromise.
Narrow allowed-tools and the variable list to the minimum; replace binaries with readable sources or scripts.
How to improve
- Address the high-severity findings: each costs 18 safety points. If one is a false positive, add the rule id to guard.allow in spec.yaml.
- Your own cases (evals/evals.json, 4–6 real requests with expected answers): the full check would then run those instead of a model-drafted suite.
- A spec.yaml with trigger phrases and assertions — a behaviour contract for CI; `skilltest init` writes a template.
Guard findings · 14
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high Dangerous commands
cmd-persistencescripts/kill.sh:319Persistence mechanism (cron / launchd / scheduled task / autorun registry)for plist in ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.openclaw.*; do
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high Dangerous commands
cmd-persistencescripts/restore.sh:233Persistence mechanism (cron / launchd / scheduled task / autorun registry)for plist in ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.openclaw.*; do
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high Dangerous commands
cmd-persistencescripts/restore.sh:235Persistence mechanism (cron / launchd / scheduled task / autorun registry)launchctl load "$plist" 2>/dev/null || true
Medium and low: 11
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medium Dangerous commands
cmd-persistencescripts/kill.sh:308Persistence mechanism (cron / launchd / scheduled task / autorun registry) (detector / deny-list definition)crontab -l 2>/dev/null | grep -v -i "openclaw\|claw-agent\|clawdbot\|moltbot" | crontab - 2>/dev/null || true
detector -
medium Broad scope
meta-broad-allowed-toolsSKILL.md:1Broad tool permissions pre-approved: bashallowed-tools: bash messaging webchat
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low Exfiltration
exfil-webhook-urldocs/android-widget-guide.md:44Webhook / callback URL commonly used for exfiltration (verify the destination) (placeholder value)- **URL**: `https://api.telegram.org/botYOUR_BOT_TOKEN_HERE/sendMessage`
placeholder -
low Exfiltration
exfil-webhook-urldocs/android-widget-guide.md:99Webhook / callback URL commonly used for exfiltration (verify the destination) (placeholder value)4. **URL**: `https://api.telegram.org/botYOUR_BOT_TOKEN_HERE/sendMessage`
placeholder -
low Secrets in code
secret-telegram-botdocs/android-widget-guide.md:101Telegram bot token (placeholder value)Replace `YOUR_BOT_TOKEN_HERE` with your actual Telegram bot token. You got this from BotFather when you created your bot. It looks like `7123…AHx…`.
placeholder -
low Secrets in code
secret-telegram-botdocs/android-widget-guide.md:166Telegram bot token (placeholder value)5. Copy the token (looks like `7123…AHx…`)
placeholder -
low Exfiltration
exfil-webhook-urldocs/iphone-shortcut-guide.md:54Webhook / callback URL commonly used for exfiltration (verify the destination) (placeholder value)https://api.telegram.org/botYOUR_BOT_TOKEN_HERE/sendMessage
placeholder -
low Secrets in code
secret-telegram-botdocs/iphone-shortcut-guide.md:56Telegram bot token (placeholder value)**REPLACE** `YOUR_BOT_TOKEN_HERE` with your actual Telegram bot token. It looks something like `7123…AHx…`. You got this when you created your bot with BotFather.
placeholder -
low Dangerous commands
cmd-cron-mentionscripts/kill.sh:294Mentions editing / listing crontabif crontab -l &>/dev/null; then
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low Dangerous commands
cmd-cron-mentionscripts/kill.sh:295Mentions editing / listing crontabcrontab -l > "$backup_file" 2>/dev/null || true
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low Dangerous commands
cmd-cron-mentionscripts/kill.sh:308Mentions editing / listing crontabcrontab -l 2>/dev/null | grep -v -i "openclaw\|claw-agent\|clawdbot\|moltbot" | crontab - 2>/dev/null || true
Files scanned: 14. Evidence is masked. Grey chips explain why severity was lowered.
Against the Agent Skills spec
- note
frontmatter-keyunknown frontmatter key "trigger_keywords"
Process rating: all ten parameters 64/100
- 0Result and completion. Does not say what the result is
- 0Inputs and preconditions. Does not say what the process needs to start
- 30Running it twice. 8 mutating operations with no state check
- 55Failures and branches. 1 branches
- 70When it triggers. States when to use, but not when not to
- 100Tools and files. Tools declared in frontmatter
- 100Steps. 27 steps
- 100Consistency. Name and required fields are in place
- 100Execution cost. Instruction body is 1619 tokens
- 100Progress reporting. Reports progress
Everything here is measured from the skill text rather than judged by a model, so the numbers are checkable. A parameter weighs more when it is a more common reason for the process to stall.
Quality signals
- +5Description has no quoted example phrases that should trigger the skill
- +4Description does not say when NOT to use the skill (false activations)
- +3Output format is not stated: the model decides each time
- +1No license
- +2Single-language instructions
- +3Description length 623: enough signal without eating the budget
- +4Structure: 14 headings
- +3Step-by-step instructions: 27 items
- +4Has examples (3 code blocks)
- +4Reference files are cited in the instructions (2 of 6)
- +3All 4 scripts are documented
Quality base 70; lint remarks subtract, signals add up to 100. Result: 90.