openclaw-mission-control/docs/01-overview.md

Mission Control

Mission Control is the web UI + HTTP API for operating OpenClaw.

It’s the place you go to coordinate work across people and agents, keep an evidence trail, and operate the system safely.

What problem it solves

OpenClaw can run tools/skills and hold conversations across channels. What’s missing in practice is a control plane that makes this operational:

• Coordination: boards + tasks make it explicit what’s being worked on, by whom, and what’s blocked.
• Evidence: task comments capture commands run, links, outputs, and decisions.
• Risk control: approvals provide a structured “allow/deny” gate for sensitive actions.
• Operations: deployment, configuration, and troubleshooting live in one navigable docs spine.

Core concepts

• Board: a workspace containing tasks, memory, and agents.
• Task: a unit of work with a status and evidence (comments).
• Agent: an automated worker that executes tasks and posts evidence.
• Approval: a review gate for risky steps.
• Gateway (optional integration): an OpenClaw runtime host Mission Control can coordinate with.
• Heartbeat: periodic agent loop for incremental work.
• Cron: scheduled execution (recurring or one-shot).

What it is not

• A general-purpose project management tool.
• An observability suite (use your existing logs/metrics/tracing; Mission Control links and operationalizes them).
• A secrets manager (keep secrets in your secret store; don’t paste them into tasks/docs).

How to navigate these docs

This repo keeps a small “reader journey” spine under docs/:

1. Quickstart — run it locally/self-host.
2. Development — contributor workflow and CI parity.
3. Configuration — env vars, precedence, migrations, CORS.
4. API reference — route groups + auth model.
5. Ops / runbooks — operational checklists.
6. Troubleshooting — symptom → checks → fixes.

For deeper references, see docs/architecture/, docs/deployment/, docs/production/, docs/testing/, and docs/troubleshooting/.