OpenClaw Security and Environment Variables: What Teams Should Do Now

If you are evaluating OpenClaw, the hard part is not whether the assistant can do useful work. The hard part is whether your secret-handling model is strong enough for a system that can run continuously, touch multiple channels, and execute tools.

As of February 6, 2026, the project is explicitly branded as OpenClaw, and the site states it was formerly known as Clawdbot and Moltbot. That naming matters because teams still discuss it under older names, which can lead to fragmented setup patterns and outdated assumptions.

How OpenClaw handles environment variables today

OpenClaw’s documented precedence model is clear: process environment first, then local .env, then ~/.openclaw/.env, then config-level env, with non-overriding behavior. This is a solid baseline because it reduces surprise and keeps daemon behavior predictable.

The docs also call out a frequent production gap: service-managed runs do not always inherit shell variables the way interactive sessions do. That is where many teams lose model keys or gateway tokens after a restart and patch around it manually.

There is a direct recommendation to prefer environment variables over config files for API keys and tokens. For a bot framework with substantial state under ~/.openclaw, that boundary is important. It keeps long-lived secrets out of routine config edits and lowers accidental leakage during debugging.

The real risk is secret sprawl

Environment variables are not the core risk. Uncontrolled propagation is.

OpenClaw deployments often involve model provider keys, channel tokens, gateway auth tokens, and provider-specific auth profiles. If those credentials are copied manually across laptops, CI runners, and hosts, you have effectively built a shadow secrets platform without ownership, versioning, or reliable revocation.

OpenClaw’s security guidance is already aligned with this: pairing and allowlists for inbound access, no open-by-default posture, and regular security audits. That reduces prompt-driven abuse. Secret lifecycle control is still on your side.

Should OpenClaw use Ghostable

Yes, if you need repeatable control across people, machines, and environments.

OpenClaw already expects secrets through environment variables and auth stores. Ghostable fits by managing distribution and rotation without turning bot configuration into your source of truth for credentials.

For most teams, the practical pattern is to keep OpenClaw credentials in Ghostable per environment, inject only required values at runtime startup, and keep openclaw.json focused on behavior and routing. That leaves high-impact credentials independently rotatable and avoids hard-coding tokens into repo-managed files.

When teams implement this early, two recurring issues become easier to avoid: broad all-purpose tokens and stale credentials that survive org changes.

What teams often get wrong

Teams usually optimize for fast setup first. They get one key working, copy it into multiple places, and postpone cleanup until an incident or audit. By then, they are debugging both OpenClaw behavior and credential provenance at the same time.

If OpenClaw is becoming part of your production workflow, treat secret boundaries as a first-class architecture decision now. It pays off later in incident response, offboarding, and evidence quality.

If you want to ground this in implementation details, start with Ghostable’s zero-knowledge encryption guide and device-linking model. For OpenClaw itself, review the official environment variable behavior, security guidance, and project repository.