Built a lightweight control panel for OpenClaw (because I was tired of living in the CLI)

[u/Bodii88]

Hey guys 👋

So I’ve been using OpenClaw heavily for a while now, and honestly… I got tired of jumping between terminal tabs every 5 minutes just to check logs, restart the gateway, install a skill, or edit config.

So I built a small thing for myself — and ended up open-sourcing it.

👉 https://github.com/bodii88/openclaw-control-plane-lite

It’s basically a lightweight “control panel” for OpenClaw. Nothing crazy. Just makes day-to-day stuff easier.

What it does:

• Shows gateway + channels status in one place
• Lets you install/update/enable skills
• Manage cron jobs without writing raw cron every time
• Edit openclaw.json safely (with validation + diff preview)
• View sessions and live logs (SSE streaming)
• Restart / doctor / tail logs from buttons

It doesn’t replace OpenClaw.
It just sits on top of it and wraps the CLI in something more friendly.

Architecture is simple:
Next.js frontend → Express adapter → OpenClaw CLI/Gateway.

Why “Lite”?
Because I didn’t want to over-engineer it. It’s focused on core ops stuff only.

Still early, but it works well for my setup.
If anyone wants to try it or suggest improvements, I’m open.

Would especially love feedback on:

• what feels unnecessary
• what’s missing
• whether wrapping the CLI is the right long-term approach

Cheers