# High‑Privilege OpenClaw Hardening for Bitwarden, Email, Twilio, X, Discord, and News

## Threat model and trust boundaries for your current doctrine

You’ve built a serious “always‑on” system: doctrine in workspace Markdown, execution in runtime JSON, and a cron-driven loop that writes durable state into `memory/*` (WAL + ledger + queues). That’s the right shape for reliability, but it becomes uniquely dangerous once you add **credential brokers (Bitwarden CLI), email systems, and outbound comms providers** because an “agent mistake” stops being a nuisance and becomes account takeover, financial loss, or reputational harm.

Two trust-boundary facts in OpenClaw matter immediately:

OpenClaw stores **session transcripts on disk** (under `~/.openclaw/agents/<agentId>/sessions/*.jsonl`) and treats disk access as the boundary—any local process/user that can read those files can read those logs. citeturn9search0 That means **secrets must never be allowed to appear in chat content, tool results, or logs** unless you assume the host is already a high-trust enclave.

OpenClaw’s sandboxing is **opt‑in**. If sandbox mode is off, tools (including `exec`) run on the host. The security docs explicitly warn that host `exec` may not require approvals unless you configure approvals appropriately. citeturn3search8turn3search1 In your snapshot, `sandbox.mode: off` plus `tools.exec.ask: off` is a “god mode” posture once you attach Bitwarden/email/Twilio.

The most important adversarial reality for an always‑on agent is **indirect prompt injection**: content you ingest (web pages, emails, RSS, chat messages) can embed instructions that steer the model into unsafe tool use. citeturn10search0turn10search4turn10search1 The “right” defence is not hoping the model resists; it’s **impact reduction**: isolating execution, removing write paths to durable doctrine/state, and gating high-risk actions with approvals and narrow allowlists.

Finally, treat the skills/plugins ecosystem as a supply-chain risk: public reporting has documented malicious skills targeting OpenClaw users (credential theft / malware delivery). citeturn2search6 Given you’re planning to connect high-impact services, your configuration must assume that *any* new skill or binary is hostile until reviewed.

## Secrets and identity brokerage with entity["company","Bitwarden","password manager vendor"]

### Prefer Bitwarden Secrets Manager (machine accounts) over “unlock my personal vault”
There are two very different Bitwarden automation patterns:

The **Password Manager CLI** (`bw`) is designed to access a user vault, and the docs describe using a session key via `BW_SESSION` after `bw login` or `bw unlock`. citeturn4search0 This is workable, but it creates an obvious blast radius: if the agent can read env vars, logs, shell history, or process output, a leaked `BW_SESSION` effectively becomes “vault unlocked”.

By contrast, **Secrets Manager** is designed for automation. Bitwarden documents **machine accounts** (formerly “service accounts”) as non-human identities scoped to a discrete set of secrets, with access controlled by **access tokens**. citeturn10search10turn10search2turn10search6 This aligns exactly with your use case (“give the agent just enough keys to do the jobs I approve”).

**Security conclusion:** if you’re set on Bitwarden as the system-of-record for credentials, provision a Bitwarden Secrets Manager machine account dedicated to this OpenClaw deployment; grant it only the minimum secrets needed, and use an access token for retrieval. citeturn10search6turn10search23turn10search13

### Broker secrets so the model never sees raw credentials
Even with machine-account scoping, your highest-value move is to stop thinking “agent pulls passwords” and start thinking “agent invokes an action broker.” A safe architecture pattern is:

*Agent → requests capability by name → broker performs the authentication and action → broker returns only the result, never the credential.*

This mirrors the design goal behind “managed auth” approaches: the secret stays in a vault, and the agent gets a reference/handle. citeturn13search16

For your specific intent (“Bitwarden CLI to access university accounts”), the safest practical split is:

- **Secrets retrieval**: allow the agent to request *only specific secret IDs/keys* (not search/list), and never return the secret value into the chat. Instead, the broker injects it into a **one-shot action** (e.g., “login to site X using browser profile Y”) or into a scoped subsystem (e.g., SMTP send via SES constraint) and returns status + logs without secrets.
- **Durability**: never allow untrusted ingestion runs (from RSS/web/email) to write to doctrine files or durable `memory/*` state directly, to prevent persistence of a prompt-injection backdoor. citeturn10search0turn10search1turn10search26

### Where to store the vault access token if you host on AWS
If you run OpenClaw on cloud infrastructure, store Bitwarden Secrets Manager access tokens outside the workspace and outside `openclaw.json` in a managed secret store. On entity["company","Amazon Web Services","cloud provider"], Secrets Manager’s best-practices guidance is explicit about limiting access, rotating secrets, and running on private networks. citeturn4search4turn4search1turn4search14 Treat retrieval as an IAM-authorised runtime action (instance role), not a file sitting on disk.

## entity["organization","Discord","chat platform"] as the primary control plane

### Lock down “who can talk to it” before “what it can do”
OpenClaw’s own Discord channel docs emphasise that you should explicitly restrict DMs and guild channels using `dm.policy`, `dm.allowFrom`, and `channels.discord.guilds` rules. citeturn3search2turn5view1 The same docs also note that mentions are required by default in guild channels to avoid noisy bots and that OpenClaw enforces allowlists even if slash commands are visible to others. citeturn3search2turn5view1

Discord also requires privileged intents for some data access; Discord documents privileged intents as access to sensitive user data and provides best practices for responsible use. citeturn1search0turn1search8 OpenClaw’s own Discord doc says Message Content intent is required for reading message text in most guilds and Server Members intent is needed for member lookup / allowlist matching, while Presence intent is usually unnecessary. citeturn5view0

### Disable remote config mutation from Discord
Your system is doctrine-driven; you do not want `/config set` inside a chat channel to change the live gateway configuration. OpenClaw’s Discord docs state that Discord config writes are allowed by default for `/config set|unset` and show how to disable it (`channels.discord.configWrites: false`). citeturn5view0

### Prevent bot loops and cross-chat leakage
OpenClaw’s Discord docs warn that bot-authored messages are ignored by default; if you enable `allowBots`, you must prevent bot-to-bot reply loops via mention gating and allowlists. citeturn5view1 This matters if you later add news bots, alert bots, or other automations into the same server.

Also, OpenClaw’s security audit explicitly warns about multiple DM senders sharing the “main” session and recommends a safer DM scope like `session.dmScope="per-channel-peer"` for shared inbox scenarios. citeturn9search1turn9search5 Even if *today* you’re the only operator, designing for “future you” (new Discord users, group channels, collaborators) is the correct posture once credentials and outbound comms are attached.

### A hardened Discord config baseline (illustrative)
Below is a configuration *shape* that aligns with your intent (Discord-first, high privilege, strict gating). The exact guild/user/channel IDs come from your server:

```json
{
  "channels": {
    "discord": {
      "enabled": true,
      "configWrites": false,
      "dm": {
        "policy": "allowlist",
        "allowFrom": ["user:YOUR_DISCORD_USER_ID"]
      },
      "groupPolicy": "allowlist",
      "guilds": {
        "YOUR_GUILD_ID": {
          "channels": {
            "YOUR_CONTROL_CHANNEL_ID": {
              "requireMention": true,
              "users": ["user:YOUR_DISCORD_USER_ID"]
            }
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }
}
```

This follows OpenClaw’s documented controls: DM policy/allowFrom, guild allowlists, mention gating, and configWrites disable. citeturn3search2turn5view0turn5view1

## Outbound action surfaces: email, entity["company","Twilio","communications platform"], and entity["company","X","social media platform"]

### Email: treat “send” as a restricted actuator
If you give an agent the ability to send email freely, you have effectively given it the ability to impersonate you. The correct design is to degrade email into one of these modes, in increasing risk order:

- Draft-only (agent prepares content; human sends)
- Send-only to allowlisted recipients (and ideally allowlisted subject templates)
- Full send (rarely justified)

Provider constraints and timelines matter:

For Microsoft tenants, Microsoft documents broad removal of Basic authentication across protocols in Exchange Online, and the Exchange Team updated the timeline for SMTP AUTH Basic Authentication (unchanged until December 2026, then disabled-by-default for existing tenants, and unavailable-by-default for new tenants after December 2026). citeturn6search2turn6search6turn6search9 The stable direction is OAuth-based auth, not username/password.

For Gmail SMTP, Google documents that app passwords require 2‑Step Verification and that app passwords are revoked when you change your Google Account password. citeturn6search3 This is workable for a dedicated “agent mailbox”, but still a static credential that must be guarded like any other secret.

If you host on AWS, a strong pattern is to use **SES** to send mail with a constrained IAM policy. AWS provides SES sending policy examples that allow restrictions on From address, recipient constraints, and other conditions. citeturn6search1 This gives you a policy enforcement point outside the LLM.

### Twilio: segment accounts, narrow keys, and hard‑limit destinations
Twilio’s IAM docs recommend using API keys (and highlight that using Account SID + Auth Token in production is risky because compromise equals account compromise). citeturn1search9 Twilio’s security guidance and API best-practice docs also emphasise monitoring usage and understanding rate limits. citeturn1search5turn1search13

For fraud control, Twilio documents **Geo Permissions** for SMS and Voice as a way to reduce exposure to fraud/unexpected costs, and provides voice dialing geographic permissions guidance to reduce toll-fraud risk. citeturn10search7turn10search24turn10search3 Twilio also encourages limiting API key scope and using account controls/triggers to detect abnormal behaviour. citeturn1search1

Architecturally, you get the biggest blast-radius reduction by using Twilio **subaccounts** (segmenting usage, numbers, and settings). Twilio’s own material describes subaccounts as a way to separate usage and settings while sharing a balance. citeturn1search17turn1search29

A disciplined “agent-safe Twilio” posture therefore looks like:

- One Twilio subaccount dedicated to OpenClaw
- API key dedicated to OpenClaw (not reused elsewhere), revocable
- Geo permissions set only to AU (and any countries you truly need)
- Outbound phone numbers allowlisted (ideally “self only” at first)
- Per-day message cap enforced outside the model (broker/service)

### X: default to app-only read, treat write as a separate phase
X’s documentation describes application-only (OAuth 2.0 bearer token) as requests **on behalf of the application itself** without user context—typically read-only access to public information—and explicitly warns: “Tokens are passwords” (do not share/distribute). citeturn4search3turn4search8

Implication:

- Use app-only bearer tokens for news/trends collection and monitoring.
- If you later want posting, do it with user-context auth (OAuth 1.0a or OAuth 2.0 auth code with PKCE) and gate it with a human approval pipeline; X explicitly distinguishes app-only vs user-context requirements. citeturn4search3turn4search13

## News and browsing: safe ingestion, tool policy, and egress constraints

### Use OpenClaw’s tool system to create “read-only ingest” agents
OpenClaw exposes a tool-policy model where `deny` always wins, and if an allowlist is non-empty, everything else is blocked. citeturn3search0 It also supports tool groups (`group:web`, `group:fs`, etc.) and profiles (`minimal`, `messaging`, `coding`, `full`) to reduce the configuration surface. citeturn11search1turn8view0

This tool-policy system is the lever you should use to build a **two-tier pipeline**:

- **Ingest tier (untrusted inputs):** RSS/web/email inputs, searchable content, summaries, clustering. No `exec`. No browser. No write/edit to the real workspace. No ability to send messages to arbitrary targets.
- **Commit tier (trusted changes):** writes to `memory/*`, edits to doctrine, sending emails/Twilio, etc., but only after explicit approval.

This maps cleanly to the reality of indirect prompt injection: if untrusted content can never call high-risk tools or write durable state, compromise can’t persist. citeturn10search0turn10search1turn10search26

### Web search vs web fetch vs browser: enable intentionally
OpenClaw’s `web_search` tool uses the Brave Search API and requires an API key; it’s enabled via config and caches responses. citeturn8view0 If you treat web search as “data acquisition,” keep it in the ingest tier.

`web_fetch` extracts readable content from URLs and is explicitly positioned as an HTML→markdown/text extractor; for JS-heavy sites, OpenClaw recommends using the browser tool. citeturn8view0

The browser tool is an actuator, not just a reader. If you allow it to interact with authenticated sessions (university portals, email, banking dashboards), it becomes a privileged operator. OpenClaw’s browser docs describe how sandboxed sessions may default browser targeting to a sandbox browser, and how host browser control requires explicit configuration. citeturn12search11turn12search1

A safe posture is:

- Ingest tier: allow `web_search` and `web_fetch` only.
- Privileged tier: allow `browser` only in a restricted agent, and only when an approval gate is open.

### Sandboxing and network egress control
OpenClaw’s sandboxing runs tools inside Docker containers to reduce blast radius. citeturn12search1turn12search9 The Docker install docs note that sandbox containers have **no network by default** and require explicit opt-in for egress. citeturn11search4turn12search1 This is extremely useful for your architecture:

- Let the majority of cron tasks run sandboxed with no network and no workspace write access.
- Create a narrow “ingest sandbox” that has network egress but no write access.
- Keep “commit” operations out of the ingestion plane.

If you deploy on AWS and want domain-level egress controls, AWS Network Firewall supports stateful domain list filtering and documents that it uses SNI for HTTPS and Host headers for HTTP; it also notes that SNI/Host headers can be manipulated and recommends separate rules if you want IP-based inspection too. citeturn1search3turn1search15 This allows “only these domains” policies for the agent’s outbound, which is the right enforcement point once you enable browsing.

### Skills governance: reduce supply-chain exposure
OpenClaw skills load from bundled skills, `~/.openclaw/skills`, and `<workspace>/skills`, with workspace overriding other locations. citeturn11search7 This means a compromised workspace can override skill instructions and persist malicious behaviour. Combined with the public reporting on malicious skills in the ecosystem, you should treat “skill installation” as a privileged change—reviewed, pinned, and audited. citeturn2search6turn11search7

## Operational controls: approvals, audits, incident response, and a staged capability roadmap

### Change your execution posture: approvals and elevated mode
OpenClaw provides **exec approvals** as a “safety interlock” where policy + allowlist + optional user approval must all agree; if the UI is not available, requests that require a prompt fall back to the ask fallback (default deny). citeturn3search1turn3search5 This is the mechanism that should sit between your agent and anything like Bitwarden/email/twilio CLIs.

OpenClaw’s Elevated Mode docs explain that “full” skips exec approvals; “on/ask” can honour approvals depending on allowlists and ask rules. citeturn3search7 Therefore, in a high-privilege deployment:

- Don’t use `tools.elevated: full` except for short, controlled debugging windows.
- Keep `tools.exec.ask` on “always” (or “on-miss” with a well-designed allowlist) for any host execution path that could touch secrets or actuators. citeturn8view0turn3search1

Discord specifically supports exec approvals with a button UI in DMs to approvers, which is a strong fit to your “proposal gate” operating model. citeturn5view1

### Run the built-in security audit as part of your control loop
OpenClaw explicitly ships `openclaw security audit`, `--deep`, and `--fix` as a way to catch common security foot-guns, and the docs describe it warning about DM session sharing and unsafe tool/model combinations. citeturn9search1turn9search3 Once you connect Bitwarden/email/Twilio, treat this as a deployment gate: run it after every significant config change and before rotating new integrations.

### Remote access and proxy correctness
If you ever serve the Control UI behind a reverse proxy, OpenClaw recommends configuring `gateway.trustedProxies` and explicitly warns to ensure proxies overwrite (not append) forwarded headers to prevent spoofing of client identity. citeturn9search0turn7search2

Also note OpenClaw’s strong warning around insecure Control UI settings: `gateway.controlUi.allowInsecureAuth` is a downgrade, and `dangerouslyDisableDeviceAuth` is severe; the security docs note that the security audit will warn when these are enabled. citeturn9search0

### A pragmatic roadmap for “what else should I configure”
Given your current system already has a treasury monitor, comms processor, research ingest, and proposal pipeline, the missing pieces are less about “more features” and more about **capability compartmentalisation**.

The table below is a disciplined “capability map” for the specific integrations you named:

| Capability | Baseline use case | Primary risk | Minimum guardrails | Safer first iteration |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bitwarden access (credentials) | Auth to portals + APIs | Credential exfiltration; persistence | Machine accounts + scoped access tokens; no raw secrets in chat/logs citeturn10search2turn10search6turn9search0 | Brokered actions only (agent requests “do X”, broker uses secret) |
| Email send | Briefings + notifications | Impersonation, phishing risk | Draft-only or allowlisted recipients; OAuth where possible citeturn6search2turn6search6turn6search3 | Dedicated “agent mailbox” + strict templates |
| Twilio SMS/voice | MFA/alerts to yourself | Toll fraud, unexpected spend | API keys + subaccount + geo permissions + monitoring citeturn1search9turn10search7turn1search17 | “Self-only” allowlisted numbers + daily cap |
| X API | Read news/trends | Token leakage; write misuse | Use app-only read tokens; treat tokens as passwords citeturn4search3turn4search8 | Read-only monitoring; no posting until later |
| News ingest | Daily digest | Prompt injection via content | Ingest agent with no write + no exec; domain allowlist citeturn10search0turn8view0 | RSS + summarise + proposals; commit only by approval |
| Discord ops | Primary command channel | Unauthorised control; bot loops | DM allowlist; guild/channel allowlist; configWrites off citeturn5view0turn3search2turn5view1 | Separate “control server” vs “community server” |

The consistent design theme is: **untrusted inputs stay in a constrained ingest plane; privileged actions happen through an approval-gated actuator plane.** This is the architecture that survives real-world prompt injection and tool misuse (including indirect prompt injection, the top OWASP-identified risk category). citeturn10search0turn10search4

### Reference architecture diagram for your “Imperium Praetoris” system (recommended)
This is the cleanest way to evolve your current doctrine/execution split without rewriting your whole platform:

```text
                 Discord (allowlisted DM + channels)
                              |
                              v
                     OpenClaw Gateway (core)
          (configWrites disabled; dmScope isolates; audit enabled)
                              |
                 +------------+------------+
                 |                         |
                 v                         v
     Ingest Agent (sandboxed)       Commit/Actuator Agent
     - tools: group:web only        - tools: fs + message + limited exec
     - no workspace write           - exec approvals ALWAYS on
     - no browser                   - can write memory/doctrine
     - outputs: proposals only      - can send email/Twilio/X (gated)
                 |                         |
                 v                         v
          Proposal Queue (durable)    External services via brokers
          - human approve/skip        - Bitwarden SM (machine token)
          - immutable log trail       - Email (SES/OAuth)
                                      - Twilio (subaccount + geo perms)
                                      - X (read-only first)
```

OpenClaw’s tool policy model (deny-wins, allowlists restrict everything else) plus sandboxing is the technical foundation that makes this separation enforceable. citeturn3search0turn12search1turn11search1

### Concrete next configuration moves for your current snapshot
Given your snapshot shows `sandbox.mode: off` and `tools.exec.ask: off`, and you’re planning to connect identity systems, the minimum viable hardening steps are:

Enable sandboxing for non-main sessions and keep network off by default, so cron runs (which are often “non-main”) are isolated. OpenClaw documents `"non-main"` mode and notes that group/channel sessions use non-main keys and will therefore be sandboxed. citeturn12search1turn3search3

Adopt tool profiles/allowlists so the default agent cannot use `exec`, `browser`, or `web_fetch` unless explicitly granted. Tool profiles and tool groups are documented, and deny-wins prevents `/exec` from bypassing a denial. citeturn11search1turn3search0turn8view0

Turn on exec approvals and require explicit approval for anything that can touch secrets or external actuators; exec approvals are explicitly designed for this. citeturn3search1turn3search5

Run `openclaw security audit --deep` and keep the output artefacted alongside your deployment notes; OpenClaw ships this specifically to catch misconfigurations and unsafe defaults. citeturn9search1turn9search3

If you want one “single lever” to keep discipline: **treat every new integration as a “capability” that must be introduced first in read-only or self-only mode, then promoted only after it survives a week of stable operation plus audit passes.** That matches your existing proposals/approval doctrine and is consistent with the real threat model around autonomous agents consuming untrusted content. citeturn10search0turn10search1turn9search0