august-lock

name	august-lock
description	Safely control and verify the August smart lock at Crosstown. Lock, explicitly confirm unlocks, and check status (locked/unlocked, door open/closed, battery). Use when asked to lock or unlock the door, check whether the door is locked, or check lock battery.
allowed-tools	Bash(august:*)
metadata	{"openclaw":{"emoji":"🔒","requires":{"bins":["august"]}}}

August Smart Lock — Crosstown

Control the August Wi-Fi Smart Lock (4th gen) at Crosstown (Crosstown residence) via the August cloud API.

Commands

Check lock status

august status

Returns JSON with lock state (locked/unlocked), door position (open/closed), and battery level.

Lock the door

august lock

The command first verifies that the door is closed and refuses to extend the bolt otherwise. If it is already locked and closed, it returns a verified no-op. After a real action it polls status up to five times and succeeds only after the lock reports locked and the door reports closed.

Unlock the door

First run a read-only preview:

august unlock [lock-id]

The preview verifies an exact, unambiguous lock ID, lock state, and door state, then returns a short-lived approval_id. It does not call the unlock API. Show the observed facts to the user and ask for explicit confirmation of that exact unlock. After confirmation, consume that approval:

august unlock --confirm <approval-id>

Approvals expire after about five minutes and can be used only once. Confirming atomically consumes the approval, rechecks that the lock ID and observed lock and door states have not changed, and then makes at most one remote unlock call. Changed facts, expiry, malformed state, or replay fail before mutation. After a real action the remote command polls status up to five times and succeeds only after the lock reports unlocked with a recognized open/closed door state.

Status, lock, unlock preview, and details accept an optional August lock ID. Lock IDs must be exactly 32 hexadecimal characters.

List locks on account

august locks

Full lock details

august details

Architecture

August Lock ←─WiFi─→ August Cloud API ←─HTTPS─→ august-cmd.js (MBP) ←─SSH─→ august CLI (Mini)

• august-cmd.js on the MacBook Pro uses the august-api npm package to talk to August's cloud API
• The CLI SSHs to the MBP for each command (same pattern as crosstown-roomba)
• The wrapper accepts only documented commands, validates codes and lock IDs, and sends argv as base64-encoded JSON so input is never interpolated into the remote shell command
• Unlock approvals are held only on the Mini in an owner-only mode-0700 cache with atomic mode-0600 state files; the bearer ID is bound to the previewed lock identity and physical state
• Auth is resolved only on the MBP from its protected config; the Mini never forwards an account identifier or password over SSH

Initial Setup (one-time)

The first time, you need to complete 2FA:

august authorize           # Sends a 6-digit code to the configured account
august validate <code>     # Exactly 6 digits; saves installId for future use

Before authorization, provision augustId and password directly in ~/.openclaw/august/config.json on the MBP using the attended 1Password workflow. Never pass either value as a CLI argument or copy the Mini's cache. The file must be owned by that user, be a regular non-symlink file, and have mode 0600. After validation, installId is saved back to that same protected file. No further 2FA is normally needed until the token expires.

Auth

• Account and password: augustId and password fields in the protected MBP config; environment variables are an attended MBP-only fallback
• Config: ~/.openclaw/august/config.json on MBP (credentials and installId), required mode 0600
• Token: JWT, auto-refreshed, ~120 day expiry

Config updates use a mode-0600 temporary file, fsync, and atomic rename. Malformed, symlinked, non-regular, or incorrectly permissioned config fails closed and is never replaced automatically. Save failures exit nonzero.

Safety rules

• Run status freely; it is read-only.
• Run lock only when requested or as part of an already authorized routine.
• For unlock, run the preview, show its exact observed facts, obtain explicit user confirmation, and use only its returned approval ID. Never infer confirmation from presence, a doorbell event, or an earlier request.
• Never bypass the local august wrapper with raw SSH or call the remote mutation command directly.
• An approval is consumed before its state recheck. If confirmation fails, expires, or reports changed facts, request a fresh preview instead of retrying the same ID.
• Treat unlock_outcome_unknown as non-retryable: the single mutation may have reached the lock. Reconcile physical state directly before any new request.
• Treat any other nonzero result or verification_failed as an unconfirmed physical state and tell the user to check the lock directly.
• Do not loosen lock-ID, auth-code, config-permission, or SSH argv validation to work around an error.

Files

File	Path
CLI entrypoint	~/.openclaw/bin/august (delegates to the deployed skill copy)
Protected wrapper	~/.openclaw/skills/august-lock/august
Approval helper	~/.openclaw/skills/august-lock/august-approval.py
Approval cache	~/.cache/openclaw-gateway/august-unlock-approvals/ (Mini only)
Node.js cmd	~/.openclaw/august/august-cmd.js (on MBP)
npm package	~/.openclaw/august/node_modules/august-api/ (on MBP)
Config	~/.openclaw/august/config.json (on MBP)
Symlink	/opt/homebrew/bin/august → ~/.openclaw/bin/august

Skill Boundaries

This skill controls the August lock at Crosstown only.

For related tasks, switch to:

• crosstown-routines: Full routines (away, goodnight) that may include locking
• presence: Check if anyone is home before locking/unlocking
• ring-doorbell: Check who's at the door before unlocking