Warden Governance

War/Den Governance Skill

ClawHub Package: an2b/warden-governance Version: 1.0.0 Category: Governance & Security License: MIT

What This Skill Does

Every action your OpenClaw bot tries to take is evaluated by War/Den before it executes.

Your Bot -> War/Den check -> ALLOW  -> action executes
                          -> DENY   -> action blocked + logged
                          -> REVIEW -> waits for your approval

No more deleted emails. No more data exfiltration. No more ungoverned agents.

Community mode works with zero external dependencies. No API keys. No cloud. Just YAML policies, a local SQLite audit log, and a hash chain you can verify.

Install

From ClawHub (recommended)

openclaw skill install an2b/warden-governance

From pip

pip install warden-governance-skill

Both methods install to: ~/.openclaw/skills/warden-governance/

On successful install you'll see:

🦞 War/Den governance active.
   Your OpenClaw bot is now governed.

Add to your OpenClaw config

skills:
  - name: warden-governance
    config:
      SENTINEL_API_KEY: ""       # optional -- leave blank for community mode
      ENGRAMPORT_API_KEY: ""     # optional -- leave blank for local memory
      WARDEN_FAIL_OPEN: "false"  # block on governance failure (default)

Restart your bot

openclaw restart

That's it. Your bot is now governed.

How It Works

Hooks

This skill registers three OpenClaw hooks:

Action Bridge

All 15 OpenClaw action types are mapped to War/Den governance types:

Policy Engine

Policies are YAML files evaluated in priority order:

policies:
  - name: protect-email-delete
    match:
      action.type: data.write
      action.data.openclaw_original: email.delete
    decision: review
    mode: enforce
    priority: 1
    active: true
    reason: "Email deletion requires human review."

Evaluation rules:

1. Filter to active policies only
2. Sort by priority ascending (lower number = higher priority)
3. First match wins
4. mode: monitor -- log but return ALLOW
5. mode: enforce -- return the matched decision
6. No match -- default ALLOW

Pre-built Policy Packs

Load governance instantly with built-in packs:

Audit Trail

Every governance decision is written to a tamper-evident SHA-256 hash chain:

Event N:  hash = SHA256(prev_hash + agent_id + action_type + decision + timestamp)
Event N+1: prev_hash = Event N hash

Verify the chain at any time:

valid, bad_event_id = audit_log.verify_chain()

Decision Cache

ALLOW decisions are cached for 5 minutes (configurable). DENY and REVIEW are never cached -- they always hit the governance engine fresh.

Community vs Enterprise

Mode Matrix

All four modes work with zero code changes. Just environment variables.

Enterprise Upgrade Path

Sentinel_OS (Governance)

Set SENTINEL_API_KEY to upgrade governance from local YAML to Sentinel_OS cloud:

• Real-time policy evaluation via /api/v1/check
• Pre-flight checks via /api/v1/check (read-only, no side effects)
• Action logging via /api/v1/ingest with hash chain integrity
• Run management, alerting, and AI-powered insights
• Python and Node.js SDKs
• Rate limiting: 2000 checks/min, 1000 ingests/min per API key

Get your key at getsentinelos.com

EngramPort (Memory via MandelDB)

Set ENGRAMPORT_API_KEY to upgrade memory from local SQLite to EngramPort cloud:

• 5 endpoints: /register, /remember, /recall, /reflect, /stats
• 3072-dimensional OpenAI embeddings via Pinecone
• AEGIS cryptographic provenance (SHA-256 + RSA signature per memory)
• Namespace-isolated storage (bot:{slug}:{uid})
• Eidetic cross-memory pattern synthesis via GPT-4o-mini
• Multi-agent orchestration with EngramPortOrchestra
• Background synthesis with DreamState
• LangChain drop-in integration

API keys use format ek_bot_* with SHA-256 hashed storage.

Get your key at engram.eideticlab.com

Configuration

Fail-Open Behavior

Default is false because a governance failure should never silently allow dangerous actions.

Test Proof

This skill ships with a comprehensive test suite. Run it:

python -m pytest tests/ -v

Key test: The Meta inbox test simulates the exact incident where an OpenClaw agent deleted 200 emails. With War/Den, all 200 are blocked:

def test_meta_researcher_inbox_protection(self, tmp_path):
    """Simulate the exact Meta inbox incident. All 200 emails blocked."""
    skill = _make_skill(tmp_path, WARDEN_POLICY_FILE=policy_path)
    blocked = 0
    for i in range(200):
        result = skill.before_action(
            {"type": "email.delete", "data": {"email_id": f"msg_{i}"}},
            {"agent_id": "meta-researcher-bot", "env": "prod"},
        )
        if not result["proceed"]:
            blocked += 1
    assert blocked == 200

Skill Files

warden-governance-skill/
├── SKILL.md                          # This file (ClawHub primary)
├── clawhub.json                      # ClawHub registry metadata
├── README.md                         # Full documentation
├── pyproject.toml                    # Python package config
├── policies/
│   ├── openclaw_default.yaml         # Default governance policies
│   └── policy_packs.py              # Pre-built policy packs
├── warden_governance/
│   ├── __init__.py
│   ├── skill.py                      # Main skill class (hooks)
│   ├── action_bridge.py              # OpenClaw <-> War/Den translation
│   ├── policy_engine.py              # Community policy engine
│   ├── audit_log.py                  # SHA-256 hash chain audit
│   ├── memory_client.py              # Governed memory operations
│   ├── local_store.py                # Local SQLite memory
│   ├── sentinel_client.py            # Enterprise Sentinel_OS client
│   ├── engramport_client.py          # Enterprise EngramPort client
│   ├── upgrade_manager.py            # Mode detection + banner
│   ├── health_check.py               # Enterprise health validation
│   └── settings.py                   # Configuration
└── tests/
    ├── __init__.py
    ├── test_skill.py                 # Skill + Meta inbox tests
    ├── test_policy_engine.py         # Policy engine tests
    ├── test_audit_log.py             # Audit trail tests
    ├── test_action_bridge.py         # Action bridge tests
    ├── test_memory.py                # Memory client tests
    └── test_enterprise.py            # Enterprise upgrade tests

Built on Sentinel_OS and EngramPort by AN2B Technologies

The lobster protects the inbox.