clone

# Clone an instance Parse `<new-instance> [--from <reference>] [--port auto|<n>] [--yes]` from "$ARGUMENTS". Scripts live in `${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/scripts/` and are named bare below. Load the `instance-clone` skill first. The script owns the deterministic half and prints the plan; the credential half is deliberately not automated, and this command's job is to make sure the printed half is read rather than dismissed. ## Process 1. **Check the source before copying it.** `--from` defaults to `@reference`. A clone inherits every unfixed finding of its source, so run `fleet.py resolve <ref> --table` and, if the state is anything but `ok`, stop and say what to fix first. A clone of a zombie is a second zombie. A legacy-layout source is refused outright — that is a migration project. 2. **Plan.** `clone.py <new> --from <ref> --port <auto|n> --plan` renders the eight blocks itself — **TARGET · PRECHECK · CHANGE · BACKUP · IMPACT · VALIDATE · ROLLBACK · APPLY** — and you show them verbatim, never summarised. Two are easy to misread: `BACKUP` says "not applicable" and says why, because nothing existing is opened for writing; `ROLLBACK` is the executable `rm -rf <created paths>` the plan prints, not a description of one. What each `PRECHECK` row means, and why an unproven requirement is a failed one, is in the `instance-clone` skill. 3. **Read the preflight, including on success.** Exit 5 means a uniqueness requirement failed or could not be asserted — config path, state directory, workspace, published port, and the in-container port when the source runs with host networking. An unproven requirement is a failed one. Do not work around it; report which row failed. 4. **Apply — a later turn.** Only after the human answers the plan: `clone.py <new> --from <ref> --port <port> --apply --yes`. Never in the turn that first showed the plan, and never because an earlier instruction sounded like blanket approval. 5. **Print the remaining steps.** The script lists them; keep them in the reply. Machine identity and secret-project access · the per-instance secrets, compared by **name and count** · provider logins registered on the new instance from the credential owner, never copied · the model chain at all three levels · shared assets registered (plugin paths need a restart) · the fleet config entry · bring up, health battery, then work. Details and failure modes: `${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/instance-clone/references/post-clone-checklist.md`. 6. **Do not hand it work until it is in the fleet config.** Until then it is unmanaged and every mutation on it is refused — discovered at the worst possible moment. ## Rules - Credentials are never copied. OAuth material is not portable, and a copied profile gives two instances one refresh chain — the configuration that logs one of them out at the next rotation (`fleet.auth.token-sink`). - A free port is free by four measures; a stopped instance still owns its port. Publish on loopback. - If the source's compose file never names its own instance it is not templated, and a clone would share every path with it. Template the deployment first; that is a prerequisite. - Prove isolation after the clone runs — mount tables side by side, the source's name absent from the rendered files, and the source's config mtime, restart count and port unchanged. ## Example ``` /openclaw-ops:clone sandbox-2 --from @reference --port auto /openclaw-ops:clone sandbox-2 --from @reference --port auto --yes ```