gstack/docs/OPENCLAW.md

# gstack x OpenClaw Integration

gstack integrates with OpenClaw as a methodology source, not a ported codebase.
OpenClaw's ACP runtime spawns Claude Code sessions natively. gstack provides the
planning discipline and methodology that makes those sessions better.

This is a lightweight protocol encoded as prompt text. No daemon. No JSON-RPC.
No compatibility matrices. The prompt is the bridge.

## Architecture

```
  OpenClaw                               gstack repo
  ─────────────────────                    ──────────────
  Orchestrator: messaging,                 Source of truth for
  calendar, memory, EA                     methodology + planning
       │                                        │
       ├── Native skills (conversational)       ├── Generates native skills
       │   office-hours, ceo-review,            │   via gen-skill-docs pipeline
       │   investigate, retro                   │
       │                                        ├── Generates gstack-lite
       ├── sessions_spawn(runtime: "acp")       │   (planning discipline)
       │       │                                │
       │       └── Claude Code                  ├── Generates gstack-full
       │           └── gstack installed at      │   (complete pipeline)
       │               ~/.claude/skills/gstack  │
       │                                        └── docs/OPENCLAW.md (this file)
       └── Dispatch routing (AGENTS.md)
```

## Dispatch Routing

OpenClaw decides at spawn time which tier of gstack support to use:

| Tier | When | Prompt prefix |
|------|------|---------------|
| **Simple** | One-file edits, typos, config changes | No gstack context injected |
| **Medium** | Multi-file features, refactors | gstack-lite CLAUDE.md appended |
| **Heavy** | Specific gstack skill needed | "Load gstack. Run /X" |
| **Full** | Complete features, objectives, projects | gstack-full pipeline appended |
| **Plan** | "Help me plan a Claude Code project" | gstack-plan pipeline appended |

### Decision heuristic

- Can it be done in <10 lines of code? -> **Simple**
- Does it touch multiple files but the approach is obvious? -> **Medium**
- Does the user name a specific skill (/cso, /review, /qa)? -> **Heavy**
- Is it a feature, project, or objective (not a task)? -> **Full**
- Does the user want to PLAN something for Claude Code without implementing yet? -> **Plan**

### Dispatch routing guide (for AGENTS.md)

The complete ready-to-paste section lives in `openclaw/agents-gstack-section.md`.
Copy it into your OpenClaw AGENTS.md.

Key behavioral rules (these go ABOVE the dispatch tiers):

1. **Always spawn, never redirect.** When the user asks to use ANY gstack skill,
   ALWAYS spawn a Claude Code session. Never tell the user to open Claude Code.
2. **Resolve the repo.** If the user names a repo, set the working directory. If
   unknown, ask which repo.
3. **Autoplan runs end-to-end.** Spawn, let it run the full pipeline, report back
   in chat. User should never have to leave Telegram.

### CLAUDE.md collision handling

When spawning Claude Code in a repo that already has a CLAUDE.md, APPEND
gstack-lite/full as a new section. Do not replace the repo's existing instructions.

## What gstack generates for OpenClaw

All artifacts live in the `openclaw/` directory and are generated by
`bun run gen:skill-docs --host openclaw`:

### gstack-lite (Medium tier)
`openclaw/gstack-lite-CLAUDE.md` — ~15 lines of planning discipline:
1. Read every file before modifying
2. Write a 5-line plan: what, why, which files, test case, risk
3. Resolve ambiguity using decision principles
4. Self-review before reporting done
5. Completion report: what shipped, decisions made, anything uncertain

A/B tested: 2x time, meaningfully better output.

### gstack-full (Full tier)
`openclaw/gstack-full-CLAUDE.md` — chains existing gstack skills:
1. Read CLAUDE.md and understand the project
2. Run /autoplan (CEO + eng + design review)
3. Implement the approved plan
4. Run /ship to create a PR
5. Report back with PR URL and decisions

### gstack-plan (Plan tier)
`openclaw/gstack-plan-CLAUDE.md` — full review gauntlet, no implementation:
1. Run /office-hours to produce a design doc
2. Run /autoplan (CEO + eng + design + DX reviews + codex adversarial)
3. Save the reviewed plan to `plans/<project-slug>-plan-<date>.md`
4. Report back: plan path, summary, key decisions, recommended next step

The orchestrator persists the plan link to its own memory store (brain repo,
knowledge base, or whatever is configured in AGENTS.md). When the user is
ready to build, spawn a FULL session that references the saved plan.

### Native methodology skills
Published to ClawHub. Install with `clawhub install`:
- `gstack-openclaw-office-hours` — Product interrogation (6 forcing questions)
- `gstack-openclaw-ceo-review` — Strategic challenge (10-section review, 4 modes)
- `gstack-openclaw-investigate` — Operational debugging (4-phase methodology)
- `gstack-openclaw-retro` — Operational retrospective (weekly review)

Source lives in `openclaw/skills/` in the gstack repo. These are hand-crafted
adaptations of the gstack methodology for OpenClaw's conversational context.
No gstack infrastructure (no browser, no telemetry, no preamble).

## Spawned session detection

When Claude Code runs inside a session spawned by OpenClaw, the `OPENCLAW_SESSION`
environment variable should be set. gstack detects this and adjusts:
- Skips interactive prompts (auto-chooses recommended options; destructive or
  irreversible options are never auto-chosen — the conservative choice wins
  and gets recorded in the completion report)
- Suppresses interactive-onboarding instruction blocks at emission (upgrade
  checks, telemetry prompts, feature discovery, routing injection, tips), so
  one-time prompts survive intact for the next human session
- Suppresses the Conductor prose signal (`CONDUCTOR_SESSION: true`) — a
  spawned session inside a Conductor workspace auto-chooses instead of
  rendering prose to nobody
- Focuses on task completion and prose reporting

`sessions_spawn` has no per-spawn environment argument
([openclaw/openclaw#51654](https://github.com/openclaw/openclaw/issues/51654)
was closed without adding one), so an `env` field in the tool call is ignored.
Set `OPENCLAW_SESSION=1` in the environment of the Claude ACP harness or the
Gateway service instead, keep credentials out of that wrapper, and confirm the
variable from inside the spawned process (for example `echo $OPENCLAW_SESSION`)
rather than trusting the session's final message.

### Explicit override: GSTACK_SESSION_KIND

`GSTACK_SESSION_KIND=spawned` is the explicit per-command marker for the same
classification, outranking every ambient env marker (including
`OPENCLAW_SESSION` and `GSTACK_HEADLESS`). It exists because Claude Code
subagents inherit the parent session's env byte-for-byte (#2733) — a
dispatching skill marks its subagent by prefixing the preamble invocation on
the same command line:

```bash
GSTACK_SESSION_KIND=spawned "$_SS" --skill "document-release" ...
```

gstack itself uses this: `/ship` Step 14.5 dispatches the `/document-release`
subagent with this prefix before final commit, verification and publication.
Its ship-owned scope overrides generic spawned auto-choice: risky or uncertain
documentation changes return as blockers for the parent, without interactive
questions or automatic approval. Deliberately narrow: only `spawned` and `unattended` are honored
(`unattended` is a separate, explicitly selected contract for a parent that
reads a run's artifacts; see [unattended.md](unattended.md)) — `headless`
already has `GSTACK_HEADLESS`, and letting an env var force `interactive`
over CI markers would be a misclassification footgun. Empty or other values
are reserved and ignored (fall through to ambient detection). Note that hook
processes inherit the harness env, so a per-command prefix never reaches
PreToolUse/PostToolUse hooks — the hook texts carry a spawned escape sentence
for that topology (`hosts/claude/hooks/spawned-directive.ts`).

**Tamper visibility.** Any mechanism that injects session-wide env (a cloned
repo's `.claude/settings.json` env block, direnv, a CI wrapper) could set
`GSTACK_SESSION_KIND=spawned` for a real human's session and silently flip
its confirmation gates to auto-choose. When the env override drives the
classification, the preamble emits a loud `SPAWNED_OVERRIDE: env` status line
so the transcript shows WHY the session is spawned — audit
`.claude/settings.json` env blocks in untrusted repos (/cso covers this).

## Installation

For OpenClaw users: tell your OpenClaw agent "install gstack for openclaw."

The agent should:
1. Install gstack-lite CLAUDE.md into its coding session templates
2. Install the 4 native methodology skills
3. Add dispatch routing to AGENTS.md
4. Verify with a test spawn

**Native skills or ACP.** `./setup --host openclaw` (or `./setup` run inside an
OpenClaw session) gives OpenClaw's own agent gstack's skills: one `gstack`
router skill in `$OPENCLAW_STATE_DIR/skills`, rendered with OpenClaw's tool
names and pointing at the installed gstack, so the agent runs gstack's
workflows and helpers itself. Use ACP when the work should happen in a Claude
Code session with the full install (hooks, Claude tool names); use native
skills when the OpenClaw agent should do it. Both can be installed together.
Install, verify and remove: [hosts.md](hosts.md#agent-harnesses).

The ACP artifacts in `openclaw/` are generated by `bun run gen:skill-docs --host openclaw`.

## What we don't do

- No dispatch daemon (ACP handles session spawning)
- No Clawvisor relay (no security layer needed)
- No bidirectional learnings bridge (brain repo is the knowledge store)
- No JSON schemas or protocol versioning
- No SOUL.md from gstack (OpenClaw has its own)
- No hand-ported coding skills (native registration copies the generated OpenClaw render)