Monitor Sandbox Activity and Debug Issues

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Use the NemoClaw status, logs, and TUI tools together to inspect sandbox health, trace agent behavior, and diagnose problems.

Prerequisites

  • A running NemoClaw sandbox.
  • The OpenShell CLI on your PATH.

Check Sandbox Health

Run the status command to view the sandbox state, gateway health, and active inference configuration:

$nemoclaw <name> status

For local Ollama and local vLLM routes, nemoclaw <name> status also probes the host-side health endpoint directly. This check catches a stopped local backend before you retry inference.local from inside the sandbox.

Key output fields include:

  • Sandbox details show the configured model, provider, GPU mode, and applied policy presets.
  • Gateway and process health show whether NemoClaw can still reach the OpenShell gateway and whether the in-sandbox agent process is running.
  • Inference health for local Ollama and local vLLM shows healthy or unreachable together with the probed local URL.
  • NIM status shows whether a NIM container is running and healthy when that path is in use.

Run nemoclaw <name> status on the host to check sandbox state. Use openshell sandbox list for the underlying sandbox details.

View Blueprint and Sandbox Logs

Stream the most recent log output from the blueprint runner and sandbox:

$nemoclaw <name> logs

To follow the log output in real time:

$nemoclaw <name> logs --follow

The logs command shows lifecycle and gateway output. It does not export the structured per-session agent state that OpenClaw stores under .openclaw/agents/.

Inspect Agent Session State

OpenClaw stores structured session state inside the sandbox. Use these files when you need an audit trail, a compliance review surface, or replay tooling that includes assistant messages and tool activity.

FilePurpose
/sandbox/.openclaw/agents/main/sessions/<session-id>.jsonlPer-session event log. Use this file for audit trails and compliance dashboards. Records can include assistant messages, thinking blocks, tool calls, tool results, token usage, and cost metadata.
/sandbox/.openclaw/agents/main/sessions/<session-id>.trajectory.jsonlLower-level trajectory data for fine-grained replay. This file can be large, so avoid using it for routine audit summaries.
/sandbox/.openclaw/agents/main/sessions/sessions.jsonSession index that maps known session keys to their persisted state.

To inspect the session directory from the host, run a sandbox command:

$nemoclaw sandbox exec <name> -- ls -lh /sandbox/.openclaw/agents/main/sessions

To copy a session log for offline review, use the OpenShell sandbox download command:

$openshell sandbox download <name> /sandbox/.openclaw/agents/main/sessions/<session-id>.jsonl .

Treat exported session logs as sensitive data. They can contain prompts, tool inputs, tool outputs, file paths, and cost metadata from the agent run.

Monitor Network Activity in the TUI

Open the OpenShell terminal UI for a live view of sandbox network activity and egress requests:

$openshell term

For a remote sandbox, SSH to the instance and run openshell term there.

The TUI shows the following information:

  • Active network connections from the sandbox.
  • Blocked egress requests awaiting operator approval.
  • Inference routing status.

Refer to Approve or Deny Agent Network Requests for details on handling blocked requests.

Test Inference

Run a test inference request to verify that the provider is responding:

$nemoclaw my-assistant connect
$openclaw agent --agent main -m "Test inference" --session-id debug

If the request fails, check the following:

  1. Run nemoclaw <name> status to confirm the active provider and endpoint. For local Ollama and local vLLM, check the Inference line first. If it shows unreachable, restart the local backend before retrying from inside the sandbox.
  2. Run nemoclaw <name> logs --follow to view error messages from the blueprint runner.
  3. Verify that the inference endpoint is reachable from the host.