fix(status): show live enforced policy instead of stale baseline (#1132)

[yanyunl1991]

Summary

Fixes #1132

nemoclaw status displays policy details from openshell sandbox get, which returns the immutable baseline policy from sandbox creation time. Network policies added later via nemoclaw policy-add / openshell policy set are not reflected in this baseline, causing the Policy section to be missing actively enforced
policies.

Root Cause

OpenShell maintains two separate storage locations for policy:

1. sandbox.spec.policy (baseline) — Written once at sandbox creation. Used by validate_static_fields_unchanged() to ensure static fields (filesystem_policy, landlock, process) cannot be modified after creation, since these are kernel-level restrictions (Landlock, UID/GID) that are irreversible. Returned
   by openshell sandbox get.

2. sandbox_policies table (runtime revisions) — Updated on every openshell policy set. The sandbox proxy reads the latest revision to enforce network access rules. Returned by openshell policy get --full.

When openshell policy set is called, it validates the new policy against the baseline, writes a new revision to the runtime table, but intentionally does NOT update sandbox.spec.policy — preserving the immutable security baseline. This means openshell sandbox get never reflects post-creation policy changes.

Fix

In getSandboxGatewayState(), after a successful openshell sandbox get, fetch the live policy via openshell policy get --full and replace the Policy section in the output. The Sandbox info and colored "Policy:" header are preserved from the original output.

Reproduction & Verification

Before fix — nemoclaw status Policy section missing slack after policy-add:

Check	Result
nemoclaw lyy policy-list	● slack (applied)
nemoclaw lyy status header	Policies: pypi, npm, slack
openshell policy get --full lyy	✅ Contains slack endpoints
Network access from sandbox via node	✅ api.slack.com returns {"ok":true}
nemoclaw lyy status policy detail	❌ slack missing from network_policies
openshell sandbox get lyy	❌ slack missing from network_policies

nemoclaw status Policy section missing slack after policy-add:

  Policies: pypi, npm, slack    ← header shows slack (from registry)                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

  Policy:                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    
    network_policies:
      claude_code: ...
      npm_registry: ...
      nvidia: ...
      openclaw_api: ...
      openclaw_docs: ...
                                 ← slack missing from policy detail! 

After fix — Policy detail section now shows all enforced policies including slack, pypi, npm_yarn (all policies added post-creation are visible).
Policy section shows all enforced policies including slack:

  Policies: pypi, npm, slack

  Policy:
    network_policies:
      claude_code: ...
      npm_registry: ...                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
      npm_yarn: ...
      nvidia: ...                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            
      openclaw_api: ...
      openclaw_docs: ...
      pypi: ...
      slack:                     ← now visible
        name: slack
        endpoints:
        - host: slack.com                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    
        ...                                                                                                                                                              

Test plan

• Reproduced on Ubuntu 24.04 (NemoClaw v0.1.0, OpenShell 0.0.20)
• Verified nemoclaw policy-add slack → nemoclaw status now shows slack in Policy detail
• Verified Sandbox info section preserved with colors
• Verified OpenClaw/NIM status lines still display correctly
• Verified fallback: if policy get --full fails, original output shown unchanged
• Existing test suite passes

Summary by CodeRabbit

• New Features

  • Automatic gateway recovery: the system can attempt to recover named gateways when their lifecycle isn't healthy and reports whether recovery was attempted and which recovery path was used.

• Bug Fixes

  • Sandbox details now display the live enforced policy YAML (replacing the previous static policy section) so shown policy matches current enforced configuration.

• Documentation

  • Added inline documentation for lifecycle hint output.

Signed-off-by: Yanyun Liao yanyunl@nvidia.com

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• src/nemoclaw.ts

---

📝 Walkthrough

Walkthrough

Added async recoverNamedGatewayRuntime() to attempt recovering a named gateway (select, recheck, optionally start) and enhanced getSandboxGatewayState() to fetch live policy via openshell, extract YAML from the first ---, re-indent it, and replace the Policy section in captured sandbox output. JSDoc added for printGatewayLifecycleHint().

Changes

Cohort / File(s)

Summary

Gateway & Sandbox State src/nemoclaw.ts

Added recoverNamedGatewayRuntime() (select gateway, snapshot lifecycle, re-check, optionally start via guarded startGatewayForRecovery(), set OPENSHELL_GATEWAY on success, return recovery metadata). Modified getSandboxGatewayState() to call openshell policy get --full, extract YAML from first ---, heuristically validate, re-indent (2-space) and replace the Policy: section in the sandbox output. Added JSDoc for printGatewayLifecycleHint().

Sequence Diagram(s)

sequenceDiagram
  participant Caller
  participant Nemoclaw
  participant Openshell
  participant GatewayRuntime

  Caller->>Nemoclaw: recoverNamedGatewayRuntime(name)
  Nemoclaw->>GatewayRuntime: selectNamedGateway(name)
  Nemoclaw->>GatewayRuntime: getLifecycleState()
  alt lifecycle != "healthy_named"
    Nemoclaw->>Openshell: sandbox get (capture output)
    Openshell-->>Nemoclaw: sandbox output (ANSI colored)
    Nemoclaw->>Openshell: policy get --full sandboxName (ignore errors)
    Openshell-->>Nemoclaw: full policy output (may contain '---' YAML)
    Nemoclaw->>Nemoclaw: extract YAML from first '---', validate, re-indent
    Nemoclaw->>Nemoclaw: replace Policy: section in sandbox output
    alt allowed by lifecycle guards
      Nemoclaw->>GatewayRuntime: startGatewayForRecovery()
      GatewayRuntime-->>Nemoclaw: new lifecycle state
    end
    Nemoclaw->>GatewayRuntime: re-select and re-check lifecycle
    Nemoclaw->>Nemoclaw: set process.env.OPENSHELL_GATEWAY on success
  end
  Nemoclaw-->>Caller: recovery result {attempted, via, state, output}

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Estimated code review effort

🎯 3 (Moderate) | ⏱️ ~20 minutes

Poem

I nibble through YAML, neat and spry,
I hop and paste the policy sky,
I strip the colors, find the dash,
I indent twice with a happy splash,
A rabbit's patch — now policies fly! 🐇✨

🚥 Pre-merge checks | ✅ 4 | ❌ 1

❌ Failed checks (1 warning)

Check name	Status	Explanation	Resolution
Docstring Coverage	⚠️ Warning	Docstring coverage is 75.00% which is insufficient. The required threshold is 80.00%.	Write docstrings for the functions missing them to satisfy the coverage threshold.

✅ Passed checks (4 passed)

Check name	Status	Explanation
Description Check	✅ Passed	Check skipped - CodeRabbit’s high-level summary is enabled.
Title check	✅ Passed	The title 'fix(status): show live enforced policy instead of stale baseline' directly and accurately describes the main change: replacing stale baseline policy display with live enforced policy in status output.
Linked Issues check	✅ Passed	The PR directly addresses issue #1132 by fetching live policy via 'openshell policy get --full' and replacing the stale baseline policy in getSandboxGatewayState(), allowing 'nemoclaw status' to show runtime policy revisions including those added post-creation.
Out of Scope Changes check	✅ Passed	All changes remain within scope: recoverNamedGatewayRuntime() addition supports recovery logic, getSandboxGatewayState() enhancement implements the core fix, and JSDoc addition for printGatewayLifecycleHint() is minor documentation without scope creep.

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• Create PR with unit tests
• Commit unit tests in branch fix/policy-add-status-not-showing-1132

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[coderabbitai]

Actionable comments posted: 1

🤖 Prompt for all review comments with AI agents

Verify each finding against the current code and only fix it if needed.

Inline comments:
In `@src/nemoclaw.ts`:
- Around line 562-578: The code replaces the "Policy:" section whenever
livePolicy.output is non-empty; instead, only replace when the extracted
yamlPart actually looks like a policy YAML. After computing delimIdx and
yamlPart, validate yamlPart with a regex for expected top-level policy keys (for
example /(^|\n)\s*(name|rules|version)\s*:/m) or reuse the existing guard logic
from policies.ts; if the check passes proceed to indent and replace (using
yamlPart), otherwise leave output unchanged so warnings/status text isn't
mistaken for policy YAML (references: livePolicy, policyLineIdx, delimIdx,
yamlPart).

🪄 Autofix (Beta)

Fix all unresolved CodeRabbit comments on this PR:

• Push a commit to this branch (recommended)
• Create a new PR with the fixes

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[coderabbitai]

🧹 Nitpick comments (1)

src/nemoclaw.ts (1)

576-584: Consider adding error/warning prefix check for robustness.

The YAML-key regex guard at line 580 doesn't prevent error messages from being treated as valid policy content. Messages like error: connection refused or warning: timeout match the pattern /^[a-z_][a-z0-9_]*\s*:/m since error: and warning: look like YAML keys.

The existing parseCurrentPolicy() in src/lib/policies.ts (lines 87-89) guards against this with an explicit prefix check before the YAML-key test.

🛡️ Proposed fix to add error prefix guard

         // Guard: only replace if the extracted content looks like policy YAML
         // (starts with a YAML key like "version:" or "network_policies:").
         // Avoids replacing with warnings or status text from unexpected output.
         const trimmedYaml = yamlPart.trim();
-        if (trimmedYaml && /^[a-z_][a-z0-9_]*\s*:/m.test(trimmedYaml)) {
+        const looksLikeError = /^(error|failed|invalid|warning|status)\b/i.test(trimmedYaml);
+        if (trimmedYaml && !looksLikeError && /^[a-z_][a-z0-9_]*\s*:/m.test(trimmedYaml)) {
           // Add 2-space indent to match the original sandbox get output format.
           const indented = trimmedYaml.split("\n").map((l) => (l ? "  " + l : l)).join("\n");
           output = before + "\n\n" + indented + "\n";
         }

🤖 Prompt for AI Agents

Verify each finding against the current code and only fix it if needed.

In `@src/nemoclaw.ts` around lines 576 - 584, The YAML guard in nemoclaw.ts
currently treats lines like "error: ..." or "warning: ..." as valid YAML keys;
update the validation around trimmedYaml (the block that computes indented and
assigns output) to first reject strings that begin with known non-policy
prefixes (e.g., /^ *(error|warning|status):/i) before applying the
/^[a-z_][a-z0-9_]*\s*:/m test, mirroring the prefix check used in
parseCurrentPolicy() in src/lib/policies.ts; ensure you reference trimmedYaml
and keep the existing indentation and output assignment logic only for content
that passes the new prefix filter.

🤖 Prompt for all review comments with AI agents

Verify each finding against the current code and only fix it if needed.

Nitpick comments:
In `@src/nemoclaw.ts`:
- Around line 576-584: The YAML guard in nemoclaw.ts currently treats lines like
"error: ..." or "warning: ..." as valid YAML keys; update the validation around
trimmedYaml (the block that computes indented and assigns output) to first
reject strings that begin with known non-policy prefixes (e.g., /^
*(error|warning|status):/i) before applying the /^[a-z_][a-z0-9_]*\s*:/m test,
mirroring the prefix check used in parseCurrentPolicy() in src/lib/policies.ts;
ensure you reference trimmedYaml and keep the existing indentation and output
assignment logic only for content that passes the new prefix filter.

---

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[coderabbitai]

🧹 Nitpick comments (1)

src/nemoclaw.ts (1)

559-585: Add regression coverage for the policy-output parser.

This now depends on delimiter detection plus heuristic YAML guards before rewriting the Policy: section. Please add focused tests for at least: valid policy get --full YAML, exit-0 warning/status text, and output with no Policy: header so future CLI output changes don't silently reintroduce stale or malformed status output.

🤖 Prompt for AI Agents

Verify each finding against the current code and only fix it if needed.

In `@src/nemoclaw.ts` around lines 559 - 585, Add regression tests for the
policy-output parser that exercise the new delimiter detection and YAML-guard
heuristics: write focused tests that simulate captureOpenshell returning (1) a
valid `policy get --full` output whose YAML begins at the `---` delimiter and
should be preserved and indented (exercise the delimIdx, yamlPart, trimmedYaml
and indented logic), (2) an exit-0 output that contains only warning/status text
(e.g. lines starting with "warning", "status", "failed", which should trigger
looksLikeError and NOT replace the Policy: section), and (3) output that
contains no "Policy:" header (policyLineIdx === -1) to ensure no rewrite occurs;
implement these by stubbing/mocking the captureOpenshell result
(livePolicy.output and livePolicy.status) and asserting the final output value
produced by the parser code in nemoclaw.ts (the block referencing livePolicy,
policyLineIdx, delimIdx, yamlPart, trimmedYaml and looksLikeError).

🤖 Prompt for all review comments with AI agents

Verify each finding against the current code and only fix it if needed.

Nitpick comments:
In `@src/nemoclaw.ts`:
- Around line 559-585: Add regression tests for the policy-output parser that
exercise the new delimiter detection and YAML-guard heuristics: write focused
tests that simulate captureOpenshell returning (1) a valid `policy get --full`
output whose YAML begins at the `---` delimiter and should be preserved and
indented (exercise the delimIdx, yamlPart, trimmedYaml and indented logic), (2)
an exit-0 output that contains only warning/status text (e.g. lines starting
with "warning", "status", "failed", which should trigger looksLikeError and NOT
replace the Policy: section), and (3) output that contains no "Policy:" header
(policyLineIdx === -1) to ensure no rewrite occurs; implement these by
stubbing/mocking the captureOpenshell result (livePolicy.output and
livePolicy.status) and asserting the final output value produced by the parser
code in nemoclaw.ts (the block referencing livePolicy, policyLineIdx, delimIdx,
yamlPart, trimmedYaml and looksLikeError).

---

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