Usage telemetry and update checks

Automatic update checks send a daily request by default. It asks whether a newer version exists and includes the OpenClaw version, operating system, Node.js version, CPU architecture, and request surface. Anonymous feature statistics are opt-in. This page describes update-check telemetry, not requests made by configured providers, channels, or other services.

Anonymous feature statistics describe configured channels and providers, plugin inventory, and a retained session-creation count. They are off by default. When you enable them, they ride along with that same daily update check instead of adding a second request.

These reports help inform maintenance priorities. They do not measure individual plugin invocations, messages, model requests, or active users. Anonymous usage aggregates are available at telemetry.openclaw.ai.

Declining is a completely normal choice and changes nothing about how OpenClaw works for you.

Inspect what is sent

Run this command before or after changing your preference:

openclaw telemetry show

Add --json to get the same state and payload as one machine-readable document.

The output shows whether anonymous feature statistics are enabled, why they are enabled or disabled, the request endpoint, and the last successful check. When anonymous feature statistics are enabled, it prints a JSON payload preview built in the CLI process. It does not retrieve a payload from the running Gateway. When only anonymous feature statistics are disabled, it shows the update-only request and its User-Agent header instead. When automation or update-check policy disables all requests, it shows Request: none with the reason (request: null in JSON). The preview describes the client request only. It cannot show server-derived location information.

Daily update check

The default request is:

GET https://telemetry.openclaw.ai/api/latest-versionUser-Agent: openclaw/2026.8.2 (darwin; node/26.0.1; arm64; gateway)

The User-Agent contains the OpenClaw version, operating system, Node.js version, CPU architecture, and whether the request came from the Gateway or CLI. It has no request body, install identifier, machine identifier, or random tracking identifier.

The service responds with the latest version and, optionally, a short operator-facing note. OpenClaw displays an available update and its note through the existing update notice. Unreachable services, timeouts, oversized or invalid responses, and other failed checks do not interrupt startup or normal operation.

A successful response and its timestamp are cached in the existing shared state database. Startup reuses the cached result for the next 24 hours, and a running Gateway checks again during normal maintenance with a small random delay. Failed checks do not count as successful daily checks.

For testing or self-hosting, set OPENCLAW_TELEMETRY_ENDPOINT to your complete replacement endpoint URL. The public server source is available at openclaw/telemetry.

Approximate location

Cloudflare provides approximate location: country, region code, city, and timezone. We store no raw IP addresses or precise coordinates in analytics.

Recorded update checks include these fields even when anonymous feature statistics are off or DO_NOT_TRACK is set. Missing or invalid fields stay empty. No additional client payload or prompt is needed.

Analytics Engine retains records for three months. Public aggregates exclude location information. Disabling requests does not erase existing records.

This section describes the hosted service at telemetry.openclaw.ai. A replacement endpoint configured with OPENCLAW_TELEMETRY_ENDPOINT can use different infrastructure and processing or storage policies.

Optional anonymous feature statistics

Anonymous feature statistics are off by default. Interactive setup can offer a one-time opt-in with No thanks selected by default; guided Quick Start skips that prompt. OpenClaw records a prompt response so setup does not ask again. Non-interactive and scripted installations do not opt in automatically, but operators can explicitly enable anonymous feature statistics with openclaw telemetry on or telemetry.enabled: true. The enabled setting, not the presence of a prompt response, controls whether anonymous feature statistics are included.

When you explicitly enable anonymous feature statistics, the same daily request becomes a POST with a JSON payload in this shape (values are illustrative):

{  "schema": 1,  "version": "2026.8.2",  "platform": "darwin-arm64",  "node": "26.0.1",  "surface": "gateway",  "features": {    "channels": ["discord", "telegram"],    "providerFamilies": ["anthropic", "openai"],    "plugins": ["codex", "diagnostics-otel"],    "pluginsEnabled": 9,    "sessionsLast24h": 14  }}

With an active plugin registry, the inventory includes enabled, loaded plugins whose code was imported, plus loaded bundle-format plugins. Without that registry, it falls back to configured manifest enablement. Neither path records whether a plugin was invoked or a configured channel or provider handled work.

Named plugins must be bundled, trusted official installs, or match the official plugin catalog. Private plugin identities are not named. Names are also filtered and deduplicated, and the service validates them independently. The difference between features.pluginsEnabled and the number of reported names is therefore not a reliable count of private plugins.

The session count depends on locally recorded creation events that remain in the bounded event store. Missing or unreadable state produces zero. It is not a count of active sessions, messages, or all sessions that existed that day.

The sender and openclaw telemetry show use the same payload builder, but their plugin registry, configuration, and collection time can differ. The CLI preview is not a guarantee of the exact next Gateway payload.

Reports contain no user, account, install, or device identifier. Repeated reports are not unique installations or users. The service does not maintain a per-install history or retention measure.

What is not sent or stored

Neither the update-check User-Agent nor the body containing anonymous feature statistics includes message content, prompts, model names, API keys, credentials, secret references, file paths, hostnames, account identifiers, user identifiers, or installation and machine identifiers. OpenClaw does not create a random UUID or other persistent client identifier for these requests.

The hosted service's Analytics Engine rows exclude those direct identifiers and raw client IP addresses, coordinates, postal codes, and physical-device hardware details. Cloudflare processes connection IP addresses, and the Worker uses them transiently for rate limiting without storing them in Analytics Engine. Worker logs are disabled; Cloudflare's separate infrastructure processing is outside those settings.

Anonymous feature statistics are separate from optional, operator-configured OpenTelemetry export.

Turn anonymous feature statistics on or off

Enable or disable anonymous feature statistics at any time:

openclaw telemetry onopenclaw telemetry off

You can also configure the same preference directly:

{  telemetry: {    enabled: false,  },}

Set DO_NOT_TRACK=1 or DO_NOT_TRACK=true to force anonymous feature statistics off, even when telemetry.enabled is true. DO_NOT_TRACK does not disable the daily update check: OpenClaw sends the update-only GET request without a body containing anonymous feature statistics.

Automated environments

OpenClaw sends nothing when it detects an automated environment, meaning the CI environment variable is set to a truthy value. Continuous integration jobs are not installations: they would outnumber real operators by orders of magnitude and make version and platform counts meaningless, and your pipeline should not report to us on every job.

This applies to both tiers, so a CI job sends no update check and no anonymous feature statistics. Setting OPENCLAW_TELEMETRY_ENDPOINT overrides the suppression, because a configured endpoint means the run is deliberately exercising this path.

Disable every automatic update request

To go fully dark, disable the existing startup update check:

{  update: {    checkOnStart: false,  },}

This stops both tiers and every automatic update request: no update request, anonymous feature statistics, or update notice, even when update.auto.enabled is true. Setting OPENCLAW_NO_AUTO_UPDATE=1 also prevents automatic update requests. Explicit update commands remain available when you choose to run them.

See Configuration reference for the full telemetry configuration and Update configuration for the automatic update-check controls.