openclaw-parallels-smoke

name	openclaw-parallels-smoke
description	End-to-end Parallels smoke, upgrade, and rerun workflow for OpenClaw across macOS, Windows, and Linux guests. Use when Codex needs to run, rerun, debug, or interpret VM-based install, onboarding, gateway smoke tests, latest-release-to-main upgrade checks, fresh snapshot retests, or optional Discord roundtrip verification under Parallels.

OpenClaw Parallels Smoke

Use this skill for Parallels guest workflows and smoke interpretation. Do not load it for normal repo work.

Global rules

• Use the snapshot most closely matching the requested fresh baseline.
• Gateway verification in smoke runs should use openclaw gateway status --deep --require-rpc unless the stable version being checked does not support it yet.
• Stable 2026.3.12 pre-upgrade diagnostics may require a plain gateway status --deep fallback.
• Treat precheck=latest-ref-fail on that stable pre-upgrade lane as baseline, not automatically a regression.
• Pass --json for machine-readable summaries.
• Per-phase logs land under /tmp/openclaw-parallels-*.
• Do not run local and gateway agent turns in parallel on the same fresh workspace or session.
• If main is moving under active multi-agent work, prefer a detached worktree pinned to one commit for long Parallels suites. The smoke scripts now verify the packed tgz commit instead of live git rev-parse HEAD, but a pinned worktree still avoids noisy rebuild/version drift during reruns.
• For prlctl exec, pass the VM name before --current-user (prlctl exec "$VM" --current-user ...), not the other way around.
• If the workflow installs OpenClaw from a repo checkout instead of the site installer/npm release, finish by installing a real guest CLI shim and verifying it in a fresh guest shell. pnpm openclaw ... inside the repo is not enough for handoff parity.
• On macOS guests, prefer a user-global install plus a stable PATH-visible shim:
  • install with NPM_CONFIG_PREFIX="$HOME/.npm-global" npm install -g .
  • make sure ~/.local/bin/openclaw exists or ~/.npm-global/bin is on PATH
  • verify from a brand-new guest shell with which openclaw and openclaw --version

npm install then update

• Preferred entrypoint: pnpm test:parallels:npm-update
• Flow: fresh snapshot -> install npm package baseline -> smoke -> install current main tgz on the same guest -> smoke again.
• Same-guest update verification should set the default model explicitly to openai/gpt-5.4 before the agent turn and use a fresh explicit --session-id so old session model state does not leak into the check.
• The aggregate npm-update wrapper must resolve the Linux VM with the same Ubuntu fallback policy as parallels-linux-smoke.sh before both fresh and update lanes. Treat any Ubuntu guest with major version >= 24 as acceptable when the exact default VM is missing, preferring the closest version match. On Peter's current host today, missing Ubuntu 24.04.3 ARM64 should fall back to Ubuntu 25.10.
• On macOS same-guest update checks, restart the gateway after the npm upgrade before gateway status / agent; launchd can otherwise report a loaded service while the old process has exited and the fresh process is not RPC-ready yet.
• On Windows same-guest update checks, restart the gateway after the npm upgrade before gateway status / agent; in-place global npm updates can otherwise leave stale hashed dist/* module imports alive in the running service.
• For Windows same-guest update checks, prefer the done-file/log-drain PowerShell runner pattern over one long-lived prlctl exec ... powershell -EncodedCommand ... transport. The guest can finish successfully while the outer prlctl exec still hangs.
• The Windows same-guest update helper should write stage markers to its log before long steps like tgz download and npm install -g so the outer progress monitor does not sit on waiting for first log line during healthy but quiet installs.
• Linux same-guest update verification should also export HOME=/root, pass OPENAI_API_KEY via prlctl exec ... /usr/bin/env, and use openclaw agent --local; the fresh Linux baseline does not rely on persisted gateway credentials.
• The npm-update wrapper now prints per-lane progress from the nested log files. If a lane still looks stuck, inspect the nested logs in runDir first (macos-fresh.log, windows-fresh.log, linux-fresh.log, macos-update.log, windows-update.log, linux-update.log) instead of assuming the outer wrapper hung.
• If the wrapper fails a lane, read the auto-dumped tail first, then the full nested lane log under /tmp/openclaw-parallels-npm-update.*.

CLI invocation footgun

• The Parallels smoke shell scripts should tolerate a literal bare -- arg so pnpm test:parallels:* -- --json and similar forwarded invocations work without needing to call bash scripts/e2e/... directly.

macOS flow

• Preferred entrypoint: pnpm test:parallels:macos
• Default upgrade coverage on macOS should now include: fresh snapshot -> site installer pinned to the latest stable tag -> openclaw update --channel dev on the guest. Treat this as part of the default Tahoe regression plan, not an optional side quest.
• parallels-macos-smoke.sh --mode upgrade should run that release-to-dev lane by default. Keep the older host-tgz upgrade path only when the caller explicitly passes --target-package-spec.
• Because the default upgrade lane no longer needs a host tgz, skip npm pack + host HTTP server startup for --mode upgrade unless --target-package-spec is set. Keep the pack/server path for fresh and both.
• If that release-to-dev lane fails with reason=preflight-no-good-commit and repeated sh: pnpm: command not found tails from preflight build, treat it as an updater regression first. The fix belongs in the git/dev updater bootstrap path, not in Parallels retry logic.
• Until the public stable train includes that updater bootstrap fix, the macOS release-to-dev lane may seed a temporary guest-local pnpm shim immediately before openclaw update --channel dev. Keep that workaround scoped to the smoke harness and remove it once the latest stable no longer needs it.
• In Tahoe prlctl exec --current-user runs, prefer explicit node .../openclaw.mjs ... invocations for the release->dev handoff itself and for post-update verification. The shebanged global openclaw wrapper can fail with env: node: No such file or directory, and self-updating through the wrapper is a weaker lane than invoking the entrypoint under a fixed node.
• Default to the snapshot closest to macOS 26.3.1 latest.
• On Peter's Tahoe VM, fresh-latest-march-2026 can hang in prlctl snapshot-switch; if restore times out there, rerun with --snapshot-hint 'macOS 26.3.1 latest' before blaming auth or the harness.
• parallels-macos-smoke.sh now retries snapshot-switch once after force-stopping a stuck running/suspended guest. If Tahoe still times out after that recovery path, then treat it as a real Parallels/host issue and rerun manually.
• The macOS smoke should include a dashboard load phase after gateway health: resolve the tokenized URL with openclaw dashboard --no-open, verify the served HTML contains the Control UI title/root shell, then open Safari and require an established localhost TCP connection from Safari to the gateway port.
• If a packaged install regresses with 500 on /, /healthz, or __openclaw/control-ui-config.json after fresh.install-main or upgrade.install-main, suspect bundled plugin runtime deps resolving from the package root node_modules rather than dist/extensions/*/node_modules. Repro quickly with a real npm pack/global install lane before blaming dashboard auth or Safari.
• prlctl exec is fine for deterministic repo commands, but use the guest Terminal or prlctl enter when installer parity or shell-sensitive behavior matters.
• Multi-word openclaw agent --message ... checks should go through a guest shell wrapper (guest_current_user_sh / guest_current_user_cli or /bin/sh -lc ...), not raw prlctl exec ... node openclaw.mjs ..., or the message can be split into extra argv tokens and Commander reports too many arguments for 'agent'.
• When ref-mode onboarding stores OPENAI_API_KEY as an env secret ref, the post-onboard agent verification should also export OPENAI_API_KEY for the guest command. The gateway can still reject with pairing-required and fall back to embedded execution, and that fallback needs the env-backed credential available in the shell.
• On the fresh Tahoe snapshot, brew exists but node may be missing from PATH in noninteractive exec. Use /opt/homebrew/bin/node when needed.
• Fresh host-served tgz installs should install as guest root with HOME=/var/root, then run onboarding as the desktop user via prlctl exec --current-user.
• Root-installed tgz smoke can log plugin blocks for world-writable extensions/*; do not treat that as an onboarding or gateway failure unless plugin loading is the task.

Windows flow

• Preferred entrypoint: pnpm test:parallels:windows
• Use the snapshot closest to pre-openclaw-native-e2e-2026-03-12.
• Default upgrade coverage on Windows should now include: fresh snapshot -> site installer pinned to the requested stable tag -> openclaw update --channel dev on the guest. Keep the older host-tgz upgrade path only when the caller explicitly passes --target-package-spec.
• Optional exact npm-tag baseline on Windows: bash scripts/e2e/parallels-windows-smoke.sh --mode upgrade --target-package-spec openclaw@<tag> --json. That lane installs the published npm tarball as baseline, then runs openclaw update --channel dev.
• Optional forward-fix Windows validation: bash scripts/e2e/parallels-windows-smoke.sh --mode upgrade --upgrade-from-packed-main --json. That lane installs the packed current-main npm tgz as baseline, then runs openclaw update --channel dev.
• Always use prlctl exec --current-user; plain prlctl exec lands in NT AUTHORITY\\SYSTEM.
• Prefer explicit npm.cmd and openclaw.cmd.
• Use PowerShell only as the transport with -ExecutionPolicy Bypass, then call the .cmd shims from inside it.
• Current Windows Node installs expose corepack as a .cmd shim. If a release-to-dev lane sees corepack on PATH but openclaw update --channel dev still behaves as if corepack is missing, treat that as an exec-shim regression first.
• If an exact published-tag Windows lane fails during preflight with npm run build and 'pnpm' is not recognized, remember that the guest is still executing the old published updater. Validate the fix with --upgrade-from-packed-main, then wait for the next tagged npm release before expecting the historical tag lane to pass.
• Multi-word openclaw agent --message ... checks should call & $openclaw ... inside PowerShell, not Start-Process ... -ArgumentList against openclaw.cmd, or Commander can see split argv and throw too many arguments for 'agent'.
• Windows installer/tgz phases now retry once after guest-ready recheck; keep new Windows smoke steps idempotent so a transport-flake retry is safe.
• If a Windows retry sees the VM become suspended or stopped, resume/start it before the next prlctl exec; otherwise the second attempt just repeats the same rc=255.
• Windows global npm install -g phases can stay quiet for a minute or more even when healthy; inspect the phase log before calling it hung, and only treat it as a regression once the retry wrapper or timeout trips.
• The Windows baseline-package helpers now auto-dump the latest guest npm-cache/_logs/*-debug-0.log tail on timeout or nonzero completion. Read that tail in the phase log before opening a second guest shell.
• Fresh Windows tgz install phases should also use the background PowerShell runner plus done-file/log-drain pattern; do not rely on one long-lived prlctl exec ... powershell ... npm install -g transport for package installs.
• Windows release-to-dev helpers should log where pnpm before and after the update and require where pnpm to succeed post-update. That proves the updater installed or enabled pnpm itself instead of depending on a smoke-only bootstrap.
• Fresh Windows ref-mode onboard should use the same background PowerShell runner plus done-file/log-drain pattern as the npm-update helper, including startup materialization checks, host-side timeouts on short poll prlctl exec calls, and retry-on-poll-failure behavior for transient transport flakes.
• Fresh Windows daemon-health reachability should use a hello-only gateway probe and a longer per-probe timeout than the default local attach path; full health RPCs are too eager during initial startup on current main.
• Fresh Windows ref-mode agent verification should set OPENAI_API_KEY in the PowerShell environment before invoking openclaw.cmd agent, for the same pairing-required fallback reason as macOS.
• The standalone Windows upgrade smoke lane should stop the managed gateway after upgrade.install-main and before upgrade.onboard-ref. Restarting before onboard can leave the old process alive on the pre-onboard token while onboard rewrites ~/.openclaw/openclaw.json, which then fails gateway-health with unauthorized: gateway token mismatch.
• If standalone Windows upgrade fails with a gateway token mismatch but pnpm test:parallels:npm-update passes, trust the mismatch as a standalone ref-onboard ordering bug first; the npm-update helper does not re-run ref-mode onboard on the same guest.
• Keep onboarding and status output ASCII-clean in logs; fancy punctuation becomes mojibake in current capture paths.
• If you hit an older run with rc=255 plus an empty fresh.install-main.log or upgrade.install-main.log, treat it as a likely prlctl exec transport drop after guest start-up, not immediate proof of an npm/package failure.

Linux flow

• Preferred entrypoint: pnpm test:parallels:linux
• Use the snapshot closest to fresh Ubuntu 24.04.3 ARM64.
• If that exact VM is missing on the host, any Ubuntu guest with major version >= 24 is acceptable; prefer the closest versioned Ubuntu guest with a fresh poweroff snapshot. On Peter's host today, that is Ubuntu 25.10.
• Use plain prlctl exec; --current-user is not the right transport on this snapshot.
• Fresh snapshots may be missing curl, and apt-get update can fail on clock skew. Bootstrap with apt-get -o Acquire::Check-Date=false update and install curl ca-certificates.
• Fresh main tgz smoke still needs the latest-release installer first because the snapshot has no Node or npm before bootstrap.
• This snapshot does not have a usable systemd --user session; managed daemon install is unsupported.
• The Linux smoke now falls back to a manual setsid openclaw gateway run --bind loopback --port 18789 --force launch with HOME=/root and the provider secret exported, then verifies gateway status --deep --require-rpc when available.
• The Linux manual gateway launch should wait for gateway status --deep --require-rpc inside the gateway-start phase; otherwise the first status probe can race the background bind and fail a healthy lane.
• If Linux gateway bring-up fails, inspect /tmp/openclaw-parallels-linux-gateway.log in the guest phase logs first; the common failure mode is a missing provider secret in the launched gateway environment.

Discord roundtrip

• Discord roundtrip is optional and should be enabled with:
  • --discord-token-env
  • --discord-guild-id
  • --discord-channel-id
• Keep the Discord token only in a host env var.
• Use installed openclaw message send/read, not node openclaw.mjs message ....
• Set channels.discord.guilds as one JSON object, not dotted config paths with snowflakes.
• Avoid long prlctl enter or expect-driven Discord config scripts; prefer prlctl exec --current-user /bin/sh -lc ... with short commands.
• For a narrower macOS-only Discord proof run, the existing parallels-discord-roundtrip skill is the deep-dive companion.