instrument-agent

Instrument Your Agent with DashClaw

Help developers add DashClaw governance to any AI agent. Walk through the 4-step governance loop with working code.

The 4-Step Governance Loop

Every governed decision follows this deterministic flow:

1. Guard  → "Can I do this?"           (POST /api/guard)
2. Record → "I am doing this."         (POST /api/actions)
3. Verify → "I believe this is true."  (POST /api/assumptions)
4. Outcome → "This was the result."    (PATCH /api/actions/:id)

Step 0: Install & Initialize

Node.js

npm install dashclaw

import { DashClaw } from 'dashclaw';

const claw = new DashClaw({
  baseUrl: process.env.DASHCLAW_BASE_URL,
  apiKey: process.env.DASHCLAW_API_KEY,
  agentId: 'my-agent'
});

Python

pip install dashclaw

from dashclaw import DashClaw

claw = DashClaw(
    base_url=os.environ["DASHCLAW_BASE_URL"],
    api_key=os.environ["DASHCLAW_API_KEY"],
    agent_id="my-agent"
)

Step 0.5: Session Lifecycle (Optional but Recommended)

Create a session to track the full lifecycle of your agent's work. Sessions enable monitoring, recovery, and continuity across restarts.

// Create a session at agent startup
const session = await fetch(`${baseUrl}/api/sessions`, {
  method: 'POST',
  headers: { 'Authorization': `Bearer ${apiKey}`, 'Content-Type': 'application/json' },
  body: JSON.stringify({ agent_id: 'my-agent', metadata: { task: 'deploy-pipeline' } })
}).then(r => r.json());

// Report status during execution
await fetch(`${baseUrl}/api/sessions/${session.id}`, {
  method: 'PATCH',
  headers: { 'Authorization': `Bearer ${apiKey}`, 'Content-Type': 'application/json' },
  body: JSON.stringify({ status: 'running', checkpoint: { step: 'guard-check' } })
});

Session lifecycle is optional — all governance loop steps work without it — but it provides visibility into long-running agent tasks and enables automatic recovery when sessions are interrupted.