node-connect

A troubleshooting guide for pairing Android, iOS, or macOS companion apps with an OpenClaw gateway.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it when QR codes or setup codes fail, local Wi-Fi works but remote access does not, or errors mention pairing, tokens, gateway binding, or Tailscale.
Why use it?
It helps identify whether a failed connection is caused by the network route, gateway settings, pairing state, or authentication details.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/the-open-agent/openagent/node-connect
Any agent
npx skills add the-open-agent/openagent --skill node-connect
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/the-open-agent/openagent

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Per session 81 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,124 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.00081 $0.01124
Opus 5 $0.00041 $0.00562
Sonnet 5 $0.00016 $0.00225
Haiku 4.5 $0.00008 $0.00112

Measured 2d ago against content hash 3b89d261b573, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

node-connect scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 2d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

Origin

Copies of this mod

1 near-identical copy found in the catalogue:

skills/node-connect/SKILL.md · 143 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 143 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Node Connect

Goal: find the one real route from node -> gateway, verify OpenClaw is advertising that route, then fix pairing/auth.

Topology first

Decide which case you are in before proposing fixes:

  • same machine / emulator / USB tunnel
  • same LAN / local Wi-Fi
  • same Tailscale tailnet
  • public URL / reverse proxy

Do not mix them.

  • Local Wi-Fi problem: do not switch to Tailscale unless remote access is actually needed.
  • VPS / remote gateway problem: do not keep debugging localhost or LAN IPs.

If ambiguous, ask first

If the setup is unclear or the failure report is vague, ask short clarifying questions before diagnosing.

Ask for:

  • which route they intend: same machine, same LAN, Tailscale tailnet, or public URL
  • whether they used QR/setup code or manual host/port
  • the exact app text/status/error, quoted exactly if possible
  • whether openclaw devices list shows a pending pairing request

Do not guess from can't connect.

Canonical checks

Prefer openclaw qr --json. It uses the same setup-code payload Android scans.

openclaw config get gateway.mode
openclaw config get gateway.bind
openclaw config get gateway.tailscale.mode
openclaw config get gateway.remote.url
openclaw config get gateway.auth.mode
openclaw config get gateway.auth.allowTailscale
openclaw config get plugins.entries.device-pair.config.publicUrl
openclaw qr --json
openclaw devices list
openclaw nodes status

If this OpenClaw instance is pointed at a remote gateway, also run:

openclaw qr --remote --json

If Tailscale is part of the story:

tailscale status --json

Read the result, not guesses

openclaw qr --json success means:

  • gatewayUrl: this is the actual endpoint the app should use.
  • urlSource: this tells you which config path won.

Common good sources:

  • gateway.bind=lan: same Wi-Fi / LAN only
  • gateway.bind=tailnet: direct tailnet access
  • gateway.tailscale.mode=serve or gateway.tailscale.mode=funnel: Tailscale route
  • plugins.entries.device-pair.config.publicUrl: explicit public/reverse-proxy route
  • gateway.remote.url: remote gateway route

Read the full file on GitHub · 143 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 2d ago First seen · 143 lines · 81 tokens per session scan A 3b89d261b573

Subscribe to this mod's changes

node-connect is a skill published in the GitHub repository the-open-agent/openagent (5,596 stars, last pushed today), licensed Apache-2.0. It adds 81 tokens to every session and 1,124 once invoked, about $0.0004 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.