openclaw substrate support

[peterj]

support running openclaw on substrate.

[Copilot]

Pull request overview

Adds Agent Substrate as a new runtime option for OpenClaw/NemoClaw AgentHarnesses, alongside the existing OpenShell flow. The PR introduces new CRD/API fields, controller/provisioning logic for Substrate WorkerPool/ActorTemplate/Actor lifecycle, a kagent gateway proxy for OpenClaw UI traffic, Helm wiring/RBAC, UI form/list updates, and example documentation.

Changes:

• Adds spec.runtime=substrate and spec.substrate configuration/status support for AgentHarness resources.
• Implements Substrate backend/provisioner logic, shared OpenClaw bootstrap generation, and HTTP/WebSocket gateway proxying to actor pods.
• Updates UI, Helm chart, CRDs, examples, and Go module dependencies to expose and deploy the new runtime.

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 63 out of 67 changed files in this pull request and generated 8 comments.

Show a summary per file

File	Description
ui/src/types/index.ts	Adds Substrate harness response shape to UI types.
ui/src/lib/openshellSandboxAgents.ts	Adds helpers for identifying Substrate harness rows.
ui/src/lib/openClawSandboxForm.ts	Extends harness form draft generation with runtime and Substrate fields.
ui/src/lib/agentHarness.ts	Generalizes harness helpers across OpenShell/Substrate runtimes.
ui/src/components/AgentListView.tsx	Routes Substrate harness chat/action links to the gateway path.
ui/src/components/AgentCard.tsx	Shows runtime context and links Substrate harnesses to gateway UI.
ui/src/components/agent-form/OpenClawSandboxFields.tsx	Adds runtime selection and Substrate-specific form inputs.
ui/src/app/openshell/OpenshellTerminalPage.tsx	Refactors terminal reconnect/autoconnect handling and messaging.
ui/next.config.ts	Adds local-development /api rewrite to the controller.
helm/kagent/values.yaml	Adds Substrate controller values and oauth2-proxy gateway skip-auth regex.
helm/kagent/templates/rbac/getter-role.yaml	Grants controller RBAC for Substrate CRDs.
helm/kagent/templates/controller-deployment.yaml	Wires Substrate Helm values into controller environment variables.
helm/kagent-crds/templates/kagent.dev_agentharnesses.yaml	Regenerates Helm CRD with runtime/substrate fields.
go/go.mod	Adds Substrate module dependency and related version updates.
go/go.sum	Adds checksums for new/updated Go dependencies.
go/core/pkg/sandboxbackend/substrate/*	Adds Substrate backend, ate-api client, provisioning, deletion, gateway-token, startup template, and tests.
go/core/pkg/sandboxbackend/openshell/*	Updates OpenShell imports to use the shared OpenClaw package.
go/core/pkg/sandboxbackend/openclaw/*	Moves/refactors shared OpenClaw bootstrap, policy, channels, credentials, and model config logic.
go/core/pkg/app/app.go	Registers Substrate scheme, flags, backend/provisioner construction, and gateway config.
go/core/internal/httpserver/server.go	Adds AgentHarness gateway route and WebSocket auth-query handling.
go/core/internal/httpserver/middleware.go	Excludes gateway proxy paths from forced JSON content type.
go/core/internal/httpserver/handlers/handlers.go	Passes gateway configuration into handlers.
go/core/internal/httpserver/handlers/agents.go	Emits Substrate harness list entries in agent responses.
go/core/internal/httpserver/handlers/agentharness_gateway.go	Adds HTTP/WebSocket reverse proxy for Substrate OpenClaw gateway UI.
go/core/internal/httpserver/handlers/agentharness_gateway*_test.go	Adds gateway proxy/path behavior tests.
go/core/internal/controller/agentharness_controller.go	Dispatches AgentHarness reconciliation by runtime and integrates Substrate provisioning/deletion.
go/api/v1alpha2/agentharness_types.go	Adds runtime, substrate spec/status, and CRD printer column definitions.
go/api/v1alpha2/zz_generated.deepcopy.go	Regenerates deepcopy methods for new AgentHarness fields.
go/api/httpapi/types.go	Adds Substrate harness response DTOs.
go/api/config/crd/bases/kagent.dev_agentharnesses.yaml	Regenerates base CRD with runtime/substrate schema.
examples/substrate-openclaw/README.md	Documents local Substrate/OpenClaw setup and harness usage.

Files not reviewed (1)

• go/api/v1alpha2/zz_generated.deepcopy.go: Language not supported

Comments suppressed due to low confidence (1)

go/core/pkg/sandboxbackend/openclaw/modelconfig.go:40

• This SecretKeyRef only contains the secret name, so it will be resolved in the ActorTemplate/actor namespace. modelConfigRef can point at a ModelConfig in another namespace, and the existing OpenShell path reads the API key Secret from mc.Namespace; in that case substrate actors will look for the secret in the wrong namespace. Either reject cross-namespace ModelConfigs for substrate with a clear error or copy/reference credentials in the harness namespace before creating the ActorTemplate.

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[EItanya]

substrate usually deploys with an instance of rustfs, how can the user specify that for snapshots?

[peterj]

it comes down to the way substrate is installed. with the kind installation it automatically deploys rustfs and points atelet to it.

[EItanya]

Is this code only for substrate or also for openshell, I'm a little confused what the difference is

[peterj]

this is substrate only. we don't have a way to ssh into the workload as we have in openshell; so, instead we're launching into the openclaw UI.

[peterj]

@copilot resolve the merge conflicts in this pull request

[Copilot]

@copilot resolve the merge conflicts in this pull request

Resolved and pushed in 5995939.