Chapter 3: Onboarding Dashboard

Once OpenClaw is installed and the gateway is running, a built-in web dashboard is available in your browser. This dashboard is your control center — you can manage workspaces, monitor channels, review agent usage, and watch live logs, all without touching the terminal again.

This chapter walks through every section of the dashboard and shows you how to complete the browser-based onboarding flow.

Opening the Dashboard

With your gateway running, open any browser and go to:

http://localhost:3100

If you changed the port in openclaw.json, use that port instead.

The first time you open the dashboard, OpenClaw detects that setup is incomplete and launches the Onboarding Wizard automatically.

The Onboarding Wizard

The browser-based wizard guides you through five steps:

Step 1 — Welcome Screen

A brief overview of what OpenClaw does. Click Get Started to continue.

Step 2 — Verify Your Gateway

The wizard confirms your gateway is reachable and displays:

Gateway version
Node.js version
Config file location (~/.openclaw/openclaw.json)
Daemon status (running / not running)

If the gateway is not running, the wizard shows a one-click Start Gateway button.

Step 3 — Configure Your First Agent

Select which AI provider to use and enter your API key if you have not done so already.

Provider:   Anthropic (Claude)
Model:      claude-sonnet-4-6
API Key:    sk-ant-...  [already saved from CLI onboarding]

You can also add additional agents here — for example, a GPT-4 agent for a different workspace.

Step 4 — Create a Workspace

A Workspace groups channels and users together. Give your first workspace a name:

Workspace Name:  Personal
Default Agent:   Claude (claude-sonnet-4-6)

Click Create Workspace. This writes the workspace entry to openclaw.json.

Step 5 — Connect Your First Channel

The wizard shows all supported channels. Choose one to connect now (you can add more later):

WhatsApp
Telegram
Slack
Discord
iMessage
Signal
Microsoft Teams
Google Chat

Each channel has a Connect button that opens a channel-specific setup guide. Detailed connection steps for each channel are covered in Chapters 7–10.

Once at least one channel is connected, the wizard marks onboarding as complete and redirects you to the main dashboard.

Dashboard Layout

After onboarding, the dashboard has five main sections accessible from the left sidebar:

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  🐾 OpenClaw          [Personal ▾]  [⚙ ●]  │
├──────────┬──────────────────────────────────┤
│          │                                  │
│ Overview │        Main Content Area         │
│ Channels │                                  │
│ Agents   │                                  │
│ Skills   │                                  │
│ Logs     │                                  │
│          │                                  │
└──────────┴──────────────────────────────────┘

Overview

The home screen of the dashboard. It shows:

Card	What It Displays
Gateway Status	Running / stopped, uptime, PID
Active Channels	Number of connected channels
Messages Today	Total messages processed in the last 24 hours
API Cost Today	Estimated cost based on token usage
Active Agents	Which AI models are loaded

Channels

Lists all channels configured in your current workspace. Each channel card shows:

Channel name and icon (WhatsApp, Telegram, etc.)
Connection status (green = connected, red = disconnected)
Last activity timestamp
A Settings button to reconfigure or disconnect

Agents

Lists all AI agents configured across all workspaces. For each agent you can see:

Provider (Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Ollama)
Model name
Total tokens used (session and lifetime)
Estimated cost
Edit button to update model or API key

Skills

Lists all installed skills. Each skill card shows:

Skill name and version
Whether it is enabled or disabled for this workspace
A toggle to enable/disable
An Update button if a newer version is available on ClawHub

Logs

A real-time log viewer. Shows all gateway activity:

[10:42:01] INFO  Gateway started on port 3100
[10:42:15] INFO  WhatsApp channel connected (workspace: personal)
[10:43:02] INFO  Message received from WhatsApp (+92300...)
[10:43:02] INFO  Routing to agent: claude-sonnet-4-6
[10:43:05] INFO  Response sent (312 tokens, $0.0009)

Use the filter bar to show only errors, or filter by channel or workspace.

Workspace Switcher

The top bar shows the currently active workspace in a dropdown. Clicking it lists all your workspaces:

✓ Personal
  Work
  Client-Project
  + New Workspace

Switching workspaces updates the dashboard to show only channels, agents, and skills belonging to that workspace.

Settings Panel

Click the gear icon (⚙) in the top right to open the Settings panel:

Setting	Description
Gateway Port	Change the port OpenClaw listens on
Dashboard Password	Add a password to protect the dashboard
Theme	Light or dark mode
Language	Dashboard UI language
Notifications	Browser notifications for errors or disconnections
Export Config	Download your `openclaw.json` as a backup
Import Config	Restore from a backup file

Security note: If you expose your OpenClaw gateway to the internet (for example, to receive webhooks from Telegram or Slack), always set a dashboard password and use HTTPS via a reverse proxy. The dashboard has no authentication by default when running on localhost.

Accessing the Dashboard Remotely

By default the dashboard is only accessible on localhost. To access it from another machine on the same network:

Open ~/.openclaw/openclaw.json
Change gateway.host to 0.0.0.0:

"gateway": {
  "port": 3100,
  "host": "0.0.0.0"
}

Restart: openclaw daemon restart
Access from another device: http://<your-machine-ip>:3100

For public internet access, place OpenClaw behind a reverse proxy (nginx or Caddy) with HTTPS. This is covered in Chapter 27 (Self-Hosting with Docker).

Dashboard Keyboard Shortcuts

Shortcut	Action
`G` then `O`	Go to Overview
`G` then `C`	Go to Channels
`G` then `A`	Go to Agents
`G` then `S`	Go to Skills
`G` then `L`	Go to Logs
`?`	Show all shortcuts

Tip: Bookmark http://localhost:3100 in your browser. You will open it frequently while setting up channels and debugging message flows. The Logs section alone will save you hours when something does not work as expected.

Next: Chapter 4 — Gateway Architecture — Understand how the OpenClaw gateway works internally: message routing, worker threads, middleware pipeline, and how all the pieces connect.